Juxtaposed
by squigglysquid
Summary: From a KinkMeme prompt of what if Shepard and Garrus Vakarian were married before the events of ME. Link to thread: ml?thread 40914004#t40914004 I do not claim ownership of characters or universe this story takes place in, that ownership belongs to Bioware. Part one of the Parable series.
1. Chapter 1

~Garrus~

He was just getting off a long shift of watching diplomats mull about the Presidium and altogether doing nothing important with his time and heading back to C-Sec academy to clock his hours when an Asari in a long, sleek dress approached.

"Excuse me officer," she says as she points across the way to a human woman on a Presidium bench, "but that human is acting really suspicious."

Garrus looks towards the person in question and sees her head bob from staring at the grassy bank of the artificial lake at her feet quickly to something in her lap and back with her hand moving fiercely over said object.

_Yep, definitely acting suspicious, and of course it's after a long day. _

He nods at the Asari, too tired to correctly respond and begins to head over to the human woman.

Joining C-Sec, Garrus thought his days would be spent helping people or working against criminals, but since leaving his military posting and joining, he's been doing nothing but standing around the Presidium, trying to look too busy to enjoy the view, or walking the Presidium, trying to look too busy to enjoy the view. Every shift leaves him itching at his plates for something to do and despite the assurance that this posting won't last much longer, he's been here for months and thinks some of it may be his father's doing. As he approaches the human woman, still too absorbed in what she's doing to notice him, he gets a closer look at her and the mysterious object in her lap.

In her lap lies a tablet, though one made of actual parchment like some of the fancier restaurants here on the Citadel use. She scribbles onto it with a small black bar that reminds him of the kind young Turians use to apply their colony marks before becoming permanent. Her red fringe looks like a crest with a few framing her face that bob as she jerks her head up, then down, drawing the fountains and surrounding scene in the lake before her. It isn't until he clears his throat, louder than he expected, that she starts.

"Oh," she looks up, he's standing just out of her view that she was so intent on. A small smile lifts at the corners of her mouth, "Sorry officer, I didn't even see you standing there."

Garrus finds himself tilting a mandible out, hoping she can tell it is friendly, and responds, "There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here, I was asked to come over because someone said you seemed to be acting suspicious."

Her smile turns quickly to a smirk, "well officer, I can assure you that this kind fountain has done me the honor of granting me the permission to draw it if you're worried."

She holds the parchment up to Garrus, offering, "Here, you can check. I guarantee no illicit content within my sketchbook…Those are in the other book…"

Thumbing through the pages she has filled with various drawings of different locations within the Citadel, from various Presidium locations to views from different Wards, he barely catches it. Despite himself, he lets out a soft laugh, her quick remark making him feel a bit lighter after his long day.

He hands her the book back, relaxing out of the stern officer stance and letting his arms sit looser on his shoulders, subtle changes she might not recognize but that left him in a friendlier stance. Usual for someone he just met, but he blamed it on the last few stifling months.

"Well," he began, "I was leaving my shift when I was asked to check up on you and since technically you aren't doing anything illegal I can bet that I won't be the only C-Sec officer sent over here to check on you if you decide to stay."

She smirks as she begins to close the sketchbook. "So, you're saying the next guy won't be as nice as you?"

"We can't really do anything to you, but so long as we keep getting complaints, someone will have to come over." He leans back onto his left foot, a fleeting moment of confusion as to why he is getting so comfortable around her. "A stupid policy if you ask me, but I'd advise that you probably should call it a day, as you humans say."

She chuckles, "Well, Officer…"

"Vakarian," he supplies with a smirk.

"Well, Officer Vakarian, I shall take your expert advice and I will leave so that I do not cause any incidents by my frantic scribbling." At that she stands, looks to something behind him and to his left, and makes an exaggerated bow, complete with her twirling her hand.

As she walks off, sketchbook in hand, he turns to the Academy, catching sight of the same Asari from earlier fuming from her position off to his left. It wasn't until the human was out of sight that he never got her name.


	2. Chapter 2

~Jane~

It wasn't until she thought about it that Jane Shepard realized she found herself back at the same bench the next day, and coincidently around the same time she had met the Turian C-Sec officer. She shrugged it off to the fact that for once during her time of her leave on this whole station that she met a friendly Turian. _Well, friendly enough not to spout BS about how humans are overstepping their boundaries, _she thought. _Like I need a politics lesson while I try to relax_. It was certainly a nice change to the usual way her leave went.

That and the fact that since her childhood on Earth she never thought she'd find herself speaking to any kind of law enforcement without it feeling like she was being interrogated. He spoke to her like a human being, figuratively speaking, and not like he was already taking a mental note of all the charges he could lay on her. Of course that could also be credited to that fact that she isn't known here as Jane Shepard, the gang member, but just some creepy tourist. _Good enough for me to call it a win._

She sings some song whose name or words she can't remember under her breath, putting the last touches on the sketch of the Asari groundskeeper tending to the flowerbed below she'd been working on, and wonders if she'll be lucky enough to catch the same Turian on duty again. Maybe she could _act suspicious_ again and see how her luck turned out, but how do you act suspicious without looking like a complete lunatic? Yesterday she hadn't even been trying, she'd just really got into her drawing and was trying to keep the flow.

As she was deep into contemplation, her hand at a standstill with the tip of the charcoal still on the page, a throat clears to her right. Jumping, she catches the very Turian she was trying to find a way to lure out standing in the same spot he occupied close to twenty-four hours before.

"Why, Officer Vakarian," she starts as he takes the, what she believes to be, relaxed stance with his arms loose to his sides and his weight shifted to one side and slightly back. "Here to check up on some _suspicious activity_? Still don't have my other notebook, though if you'd asked, I could've been more prepared."

He chuckles and shakes his head, one of his mandibles lifting slightly from where it normally rests like it did yesterday giving Jane the guess that it means he's at least someone amused. "I'll take your word on that, but I do have to ask what brings you hear for the second day in a row."

Jane, answering his mandible tilt with a smirk, lays her sketchbook to the side and leans back against the bench. "I thought you said I wasn't doing anything illegal, unless the rules have changed," she says as she tilts her head downward looking up to him through her lashes.

If she wasn't looking at his face she wouldn't have noticed the subtle shift upward of that same mandible as he responds, "I don't know, you have already admitted to owning material of an illicit matter and had offering said material to a Citadel Security Officer…"

"Oops," she cuts off innocently, shamefully having fun with some innocent banter.

"...and," the mandible tilt that she hopes is playful remaining, "normally I'd have to confiscate said material to make sure the proper permissions were obtained for whoever's, or whatever's, consent."

Hoping his mood isn't up for a dramatic flip and he is just collecting enough to legally cause her problems, she continues their game. "And does that mean you'd be taking me in along with it?"

"If you decide not to go quietly, Miss..." _So far this guy plays a good game, _she thinks while wishing she knew if what he's doing with his mandible is the same as her smirk. If not, she's just digging a deeper hole by all but admitting she has some very _inappropriate_ drawings in her things back at her hotel room.

"Shepard," she answers warily, unsure if this is a good spot to stop her teasing and make a quick exit. Best to leave with a good impression than stay and ruin the gentle and friendly peace she has probably ever had with any law enforcement figure.

"Just Shepard?" Now she's almost positive that mandible, the one that hasn't really moved from its titled and slightly lifted position, means something good and he takes a step closer. Not enough to come within her bubble of personal space and not even enough that she'd notice unless she was already a bit on edge.

Fighting her urge to bolt, she consciously relaxes her stance. _Probably best not to bolt around a species who's known and looks every bit like a predator_, she urges. Deciding _what the hell_ she responds, "Jane. My name is Jane Shepard." He hums but it stops as soon as it begins and his outward appearance doesn't falter. She feels as if she imagined it, but she feels slightly less intimidated because of it, but because she doesn't really know when to quit while ahead she adds, "tough I never got your first name, so I feel a little left out," and she can't help but let her smirk sneak out, "or is that against regulations to give your name out while on duty?"

"And what's to keep me from giving you a wrong name?" He crosses his arms over his chest and falls back onto his right foot.

Jane has to give it to the guy, unless she's reading him wrong he can bullshit like some of the best conmen she had met back home. It definitely feels like home when she used to play marks on Earth, flirting with them to get them complacent or making them think they were following her to someplace quiet to continue before robbing them blind. This shore leave was definitely shaping up to be entertaining and this is familiar. The tension drains completely as her relaxed stance becomes genuine. "I guess then I'd just have to trust you."

Something in that statement has him chuckling as he responds, "Garrus Vakarian." He uncrosses his arms and steps once closer to her, still respectfully outside her bubble. "So, Jane Shepard, of all the things someone visiting the Citadel…"

"You'd know that how?" She defends before she can catch herself, internally wincing at how it must've sounded but he doesn't falter.

"All of your artwork are of locations that are frequented by those not local to the Citadel while there are numerous other places that have a way better views but are somewhat unknown. Also, I heard and caught a glimpse yesterday of what I assume are your dog tags. Unless I'm wrong?" He tilts his head to the right as his right mandible lifts up and away from his head. _Definitely a smirk, observant ass._

_At least that question is answered_. "You are not wrong. Sorry, as you were saying?" She tilts her head with her smirk, mirroring his movement. He hums that quiet hum, gone just as quickly as it appears.

"Of all the things to do on the Citadel, go to clubs, try exotic foods, or hell, even shop, what brings you here to draw the scenery? Why not spend your time elsewhere?" His questioning is similar to the act she'd play with marks for The Reds, but he hasn't moved into her space or made any other movement forward. He maintains his respectable space from her and she feels out of her element.

Normally flirting for her either stops before the personal questions and just become something to look back at and laugh or they accelerate much faster than this. If she ever used her flirting to take it farther it usually happened when she was at a bar and in need of a quick one night stand with some guy she'd never see again. Unsure, she decides to go with straight answers. "I guess I like the quiet of just sitting around and sketching. I don't get to do that with my job." She hesitantly touches her chest where her dog tags lay beneath her shirt.

He nods at her completely vague answer and shrugs while stepping back, the concentrated energy in the air between them she hadn't noticed dissipating and she finds herself shocked to admit she now misses the feeling, and with it, the pressure from the conversation's turn into serious waters. "I guess I'll let you go Jane. It was nice to finally, how do you say, have a name to the face?"

She chuckles, which almost covers a repeat of that peculiar hum of his, and nods an affirmative to his use of a familiar human term, unique sounding coming off his alien tongue through her translator. A sense of levity rests on her shoulders once again. She gives him a genuine smile, he earned it with his ability to throw her for a loop which is something no one has ever been able to do. "I'll be here again tomorrow, I heard that a Hanar prophet is planning a reading of some Enkindler writings," and because she never quits without a good fight, even when teasing, "Will I be seeing you then or do I need to bring those other drawings I was talking about?"

That got a laugh out of him, which she took as a success, and nodded the affirmative. "See you then Jane."


	3. Chapter 3

~Jane~

The next afternoon Jane found her thoughts constantly drifting whenever she tried to draw the Hanar preacher, or whatever term they used, _was is Evangelical_? so she decided to give up the pretense of getting anything done today and instead started to contemplate her dilemma.

Here was this Turian, a cop at that, who she just met two days ago and the only conversation they really had together was just flippant flirting that she was known to use in nearly all her conversations like a cloak to keep anyone from getting in. Whenever someone did get in, like the shrink a couple years back, she immediately clammed up, got angry, and refused to continue any more conversation. He, however, managed to pull the conversation back into familiar territory when she started to shut down and he probably didn't even know it.

Could it be possible that she was ready to start making friends again after Akuze? It was coming up close to the three year mark and although she was amicable towards any and all of her sqaudmates since then, she was never really at the point where she openly looked for their friendship.

Maybe this Turian cop was what she needed, someone who openly joked with her but didn't expect anything to come of it, where nothing would come back to bite her in the ass later if she rushed into it and screwed up. She would ship out soon on her next posting and he'd just go back to being C-Sec and doing whatever it is C-Sec officers do.

Mind made up to make an effort towards opening up and letting some of her walls down if the conversation took such a turn instead of shutting the other party out, Jane was able to get back to her portrait of the Hanar giving its speech to whoever it was able to grab the attention of.

It wasn't until much later as she just completed putting the last touches on her sketch that she found she was starting to get hungry. Hoping Garrus would show before she'd have to take a run for something to eat, she stood to stretch while checking her Omni-Tool for the time.

Two hours had passed since she had made her earlier decision, but Garrus was only behind his usual time of appearance by about half an hour if the previous two days were to go by. With that in mind she decided to at least get her things packed up and when he arrived maybe she could convince him to show her somewhere to eat.

Leaving the hotel this morning she stopped at a small gift store that for the previous three days she just walked right by without a glance, thinking of Garrus' remark about not seeing the shops the Citadel had to offer the day before. In it she found a small tote bag with a graphic of the Citadel that was the perfect size for her sketchbook and a handful of her various drawing mediums. Paying more than she considered it was worth was fine because it marked her trying something different and out of her comfort zone, and who knows, maybe eventually she come to like shopping enough to find clothes that were just the first thing she fit into and was comfortable.

The last of her supplies safely stowed away. She throws it over her should and stands looking across what she can see of the Presidium from her spot as she runs her hands back across her forehead and through the loose strands from her ponytail. She isn't far from the bench she frequented on the previous days and she can clearly see it from her location. She continues her scanning and sees the familiar blue armor of C-Sec, topped with the familiar face of Officer Garrus Vakarian. "I was starting to worry that you got lost." She jokes as he approaches, a half smile forming easily.

He nods, his mandible tilting out like it did the first day, then returning to its position. _A smile_ she thinks, _probably what I'm doing would look like on a Turian._ "Sorry Jane, I got held up. I'm finally getting a posting where I can actually do something."

"No problem, and congrats." She finds that now that she has decided to put forth the effort, friendly conversation comes easy, whether it's because of the company or herself she doesn't know, but figures it doesn't matter. "But as I've been waiting _so_ _long_ for you to show I've just about wasted away to nothing, so to make it up to me, you need to tell me where is a good place to chow down."

"Chow down?" He tilts his head, which makes her think of it as his 'confused' look.

"It means eat Garrus." She chuckles as the plating above the deep set of his eye quirk up quickly in understanding, his 'ah-ha' face she imagines. Ever since her internal decision, she has begun to notice the little differences in his facial expressions that are similar and different from her own. That feeling of being too exposed hasn't made even a small appearance, so she concludes that is why she must suddenly seem like a new person to him.

He pulls up his Omni-Tool and begins typing into the interface. "Humans and weird sayings…I know of some places nearby that serve both dextro and levo. I know the ones that have good dextro, but I can't tell you how yours will be. Are you preferring Salarian or Asari?"

"Isn't Salarian mostly bugs?" She questions, never having really eaten either, or at least if she had, not knowing what it was one way or the other. Was asking that a bit xenophobic of her? What are the odds that they look amphibious and eat bugs? She should definitely look into other species so she doesn't insult someone one day. Noticing him waiting for her response, his fingers still above his tool's interface she snaps out. "Oh, sorry, daydreaming," to which he chuckles quietly, "I think I'll go with Asari. I think I heard that they like to experiment with Human cuisine, so maybe I'll get lucky." Closing his Omni-Tool after he found the location of said restaurant, Garrus motions towards the automated cab terminal and the two set off.

As they're walking, he notices her bag slung over her shoulder and laughs. "Finally went shopping and you picked a gift shop? There are specialty stores here, you know."

She looks over to him on her right, having to tilt her head slightly up to catch his eye. "And what exactly would I be needing from a specialty store?"

Quick with his smirk he looks to her, and responds casually, "material for your _other_ sketchbook?"

_That sly little_… and she can't help the laugh that spills out, but quickly controls it so she can respond. "No, those drawings are done with live source material, it comes out better. Can't find it in stores."

They reach the cab terminal as he laughs and goes over to input the destination. The cab lights up, beeps, and the doors open up just as Jane makes it over to the passenger side.


	4. Chapter 4

~Garrus~

The ride to the restaurant passed quickly as Jane asked him what his new posting meant and him explaining that he was given a patrol on one of the Wards. He hadn't met to let slip that it also meant that he felt he could actually do something he considered productive but she had simply responded that now he wasn't just around 'to look pretty.'

When they arrived at the restaurant, he watched her as she took in the small eatery and wasn't surprised when she asked to sit at one of the tables outside, away from the majority of diners. He had noticed that she seemed to close off when he tried to get closer to her yesterday and was surprised that she seemed so open today. Maybe his expressions, things ever Turian used and could interpret, and the way he moved around her had pushed her defenses. He hadn't thought about it until he had made it back home and once he finally thought it through he cursed himself for it. Maybe the way he approached individuals of other species and the way he talked to them was what his dad had meant when he criticized Garrus earlier when approached about his promotion.

His father had lectured that he hadn't shown signs of being ready to be a representative of C-Sec to all of the Citadel's citizens and because of it he had advised Garrus' superiors he wasn't ready. That had been a battle he didn't think would end in him being given a raise up to patrol after only an hour and a half of convincing to his supervisor.

As they sat at their table, a young Asari maiden introduced herself as their waitress and took their drink orders, returning shortly after with Jane's 'coke' and Garrus' dextro beer. They each placed their order, Xemna, lightly seared, for him and a 'cheeseburger with bacon' for her.

Humming as she drinks some of her strange colored drink from her straw, her eyes closed, only stopping when the glass is nearly empty. "That is some great Coke, not quite like Earth, but close enough. Damn. That's one point for you Vakarian."

Smiling before he takes a drink of his own. "Glad you approve, but what exactly is 'Coke'? And a 'cheeseburger'?"

Chuckling, she sets hers glass down near the edge of their table for when their waitress returns. "A Coke, my poor Turian, is a carbonated drink that has a hint of sweetness and a touch of spiciness and all other sorts of bad stuff for you. I feel bad for you, to have lived you whole live without the little piece of heaven known as Coca-Cola." Her face gains a reverence as she speaks, as if this drink were sacred to all humans, or at least this one. "As for the cheeseburger, well, you'll just have to wait and see." She jabs a finger in the air and points across the table to him, "There's no way you're ruining my first cheeseburger and coke in years by making me explain it, so don't even."

He raises his hands in surrender, chuckling, and she smiles. _Definitely nice to see her relaxed and opening up_, he decides. "So we've talked about my job. What about you Jane?" Nothing like small talk to keep her mood light.

"You already saw my dog tags so you probably guessed I'm military. I'm on shore leave, which I think I mentioned, but it'll be ending in a few days. In fact I think I'll be getting my posting orders tomorrow, and after that I head out to wherever depending on that." She shrugs seeming to wait to change the subject.

"So today is technically your last day free? Why not spend it doing something entertaining?" He offers, she shifts so that she's sitting more upright and leaning slightly towards him.

"What do you have in mind, mister knower of all the Citadel has to offer?" She smirks.

He mirrors her smirk with one of his own and leans towards her, the two probably looking like two children thinking up some grand scheme. "There's a new club named Adventa's that just opened up on one of the Wards nearby. If you're up to it we could head over there after this and get there right before the crowd packs the entrance." He hasn't gone to Adventa's yet because, with it being named after the Asari Matron who runs it, it tends to have more Asari and less Turians. Perfectly fine for taking Jane to see the Citadel clubs, but not when he was going with some coworkers for some tension release.

"Are you asking me to an Asari club, _Officer Vakarian_?" Her smirk comes accompanied by an eyebrow lift this time. "I'm afraid that's not going to convince me to do a portrait in my _other notebook_ for you."

The waitress brings sets their plates down as the two share a laugh, leaving to replace Jane's drink. His Xemna is cooked just right, slightly cooked outside while the interior remains nearly raw, a little reminder of home and the way his mother would serve it. Jane's food, however, is much less appetizing and his gizzard turns a bit at the look and smell of it.

Rising from her plate like a creature from a horror vid it contains what he assumes are a mix of different colored levo foods. He recognizes some as vegetables by their leafy appearance and the that on the top and under all the components are two 'rolls,' a pre-meal food that tends to be preferred by Asari and humans when visiting more expensive dining establishments on the Citadel. Perhaps the waitress had forgotten to bring the rolls to Jane before bringing her meal? If that was the case then why was one under all of her other food? Passing over the strange presence of the pre-meal article of food, he decides it best he doesn't bring up questions he'd rather not know the answers to, like what exactly the plastic looking orange substance is, and begin on his own meal as she moves to do the same.

Cutting a piece off of the steak of meat and bringing it to his mouth he doesn't notice Jane pause, hovering her food away from her open mouth, and stare at his Xemna. He pauses and lets the meat lie on his tongue, the juices flowing into his mouth, a low thrum of enjoyment at the taste rumbling from deep in his chest, _just like home_. He then tilts his head back to let the slice slide down his throat.

It's when he drops he head back down, taking beer in hand, _the pleasures of home-style food and a good beer to help ease away the last of the day's stress_, that his eyes catch Jane, still frozen and gaze glued to his plate.

"Hey," she places her food back to her plate, untouched, her eyes shifting their focus to his, and motions to his own plate stiffly. "I think you might want to send that back, it looks really rare. Like 'raw' kind of rare. Should have warned you there and not froze up and the blue color."

He chuckles and at that her body eases and relaxes, taking her cue that to him no harm has been done, though most times this type of conversation usually led to some uncomfortable explaining about how even though Turians were the only galactic species who were primarily carnivores, they were just as civilized as any Asari or Salarian. Fearing that Jane may think of him as such, he tries to levity to avoid the topic. "Has no one ever told you Turians like their food a little on the rare side?"

"More like they like their food still breathing and trying to escape their plate." She picks up her food and it's then that Garrus sees the size difference between her food and her seemingly small mouth. Her hands barely seem to be holding the entire stack, from top roll to bottom, of food and from his position it looks like it eclipses her entire face when she goes to bring it up to her mouth. "Now _this_ is a _Cheeseburger_!" she exclaims to no one in particular and with some space magic her mouth opens wide and takes a bite. A huge smile crosses her face and her eyes close in bliss as she chews and Garrus can faintly hear what sounds like her own hum of satisfaction.

Despite her remarkable feat Garrus can't help but flare his own mandibles out into a wide smile of his own and respond with a soft thrum of his own at the sight. He had used his subharmonics unintentionally yesterday when he had teased her, and the noise had seemed to make her anxious, but today, if she heard the noise, she didn't tense up. Instead, creases formed around the corners of her eyes as her smile widen to lift her cheeks and her eyes shined with happiness.

As he returned to his food she spoke, her genuine and childlike curiosity filling her eyes and playing within the muscles of her smile. "So, Turians like to eat meat raw? Is it a preference thing on taste, or is it healthier? Is that difficult to keep meat fresh? Does cooking it ruin it so it'd have to get thrown out? Does that mean Turians don't know how to cook?-"

"Ok, ok, easy, one at a time" he throws his hands in surrender and chuckles. "I'm the cop here remember? No need to interrogate me." Feeling the need to stop her so he could get the chance to even begin to answer, and to give her a chance to catch a breath, he decides to give her a simple answer first that might be able to answer quite a bit of her questions. She settles back into her seat, cutting pieces of her food into smaller sections so her attention can be more on him.

He relaxes back as well, taking a bite of Xemna, then a drink before beginning. "The raw meat thing is actually not that common outside of Palaven and other Turian colonies that can sustain livestock. I was lucky in that I found this place awhile back and they're quite popular among Turians living on the Citadel because it's really expensive to ship meats from planetside and most businesses don't want to pay that price or charge customers the higher prices to cover the expense.

"The meat of Palaven's native food sources doesn't freeze well, for some reason it causes the meat to chemically break down or something, making the meat inedible if it were to be served raw, so that's where cooked food comes in. It tastes different, but it's not horrible. Raw, or slightly cooked like I have," and at that he takes another bite, "I heard is healthier but not by a whole lot, usually it comes down to a preference and an availability thing. In fact, I served with a guy who preferred his food charred and couldn't stand any sign of blood. I think I've heard the saying 'to each his own'?"

She nods absently in agreement and he can tell she is mulling all that he has told her. She stays quiet as the two continue their meal for a bit longer and he almost thinks that's the end of the conversation. He's starting to regret having told her as much and wonders what she may be thinking about him, would she think he was an animal like many others he's explained this to, when she speaks again. "So what's your preference?"

He starts, raising his attention from prodding at what was left of his Xemna to look straight into her eyes and their childlike wonder and something else he can't place. "My preference?"

"Do you like your meal to be able to beg for mercy or would you prefer a brick of charcoal on your plate?" And it's then, when she smirks that the emotion he couldn't put a name to that lay in her eyes becomes clear, Jane understands. She doesn't want him to explain why he is the way he is and, thinking about it, he realizes how foolish it is for him to feel the need to defend something that's perfectly natural for his people. With just one joke and a quirk of her lips, she has made him grasp that and though they are both different it doesn't mean anything, neither one of them is better than the other.

It's that revelation that lifts his mandible into a matching smirk as he finished off his beer and responds, "it's never any fun if they don't put up a fight" and neither one of them can hold back the laughter that quickly leads to an all-out guffaw that has passersby and fellow diners staring and neither he nor Jane could care less.


	5. Chapter 5

~Garrus~

As the two paid for their tickets, Garrus noticed Jane typing something into her Omni-Tool. It wasn't until the two were leaving the restaurant and entering the flow of Citadel citizens that he found himself being pushed excitedly by a bouncing, and cheerful Jane.

An almost 2 meter tall Turian being pushed from behind by a small human women who barely reached the top of his chest was probably a funny sight, he would've certainly laughed if he wasn't enjoying himself as much as she appeared to be. She certainly seemed to have made up her mind to accept his offer to go to Adventa's as he noticed familiar waypoints between the club and where they had just been.

That was how he now found himself sitting at the end of the long glass top fish tank that served as Adventa's bar. He nursed a Turian brandy, he had work tomorrow, as Jane swayed a bit on her stool to his right. She hadn't known that Asari liquor tends to take a bit of time before you feel the effects, and when you do they hit hard, so she had downed four despite his warnings.

"Stupid Turian bastard," she slurred. "You should've warned…"

"I did warn you," he intercepted, chuckling.

"Yeah, well, you did a half-ass job of it. So I blame you." She tries to form a glare and points her finger sternly in his direction, but when her eyes meet his and he smirks she falls into giggles. Who would have thought that the woman who can throw shameless flirts the moment she meets a stranger, and a stranger of a different species who was also a cop sent to check up on her, but when she has a bit too much to drink she can't stop giggling. Seeming to snap back to attention, she quickly tries to compose herself, but only succeeds in making herself giggle again, to which she shushes to no one in particular.

Chuckling and not caring that his mandibles are spread in a big grin, seems her delight is contagious and he can't seem to care, he grabs her current drink, number five that's currently half gone, and slides it a bit farther from her reach despite her weak protest of 'heeeeey.'

Giggling and shushing at a supposed end Jane turns to him, which is actually more like a swivel, a bit of a loss of balance he helps her get back by grabbing her elbow to steady her and a settling back onto the seat, before she squints. Her silent inspection lasts for a minute or two, he not wanting to ruin her train of thought, before the breaks the silence. "I gotta ask," she squints for a second again, then continues, "what's up with the headgear?" At that she waves towards the back of her head.

_Ah, a fringe question_, he thinks. He then turns to her, debating if he should just give her a simple answer or actually try to give her some actual answers. He decides to go simple. "It's a fringe."

At that her lips pull together and compress inward, making them look like they get smaller, and she squints again. "That's not what I meant smart ass, and you know it. I meant what's it for? What's it mean?"

_So that's what humans do when they get mad_. At that he laughs, "Mean? They don't mean anything, other than I'm a male, I guess. If a female is attracted to a guy's fringe then it's usually a good sign." He shrugs, not really knowing what else Jane really wants to know. "And yours? Although humans don't call it a fringe do you? You call it fur?"

"Hair, Garrus," she snorts. "Fur is what you'd say an animal has on it, though I'll grant it does seem unnecessary to have to words for such similar stuff. We should just call all of it hair." At that, she begins to play with her own and from his position he can see that is shifts like cloth but it isn't actually a single piece, it is made of small strains that flow together and separately. "Hair, I guess is kinda the same for humans, but opposite. If a girl has nice hair, a guy is more interested in approaching her for conversation. Though I'm sure Turians are just like humans in that it isn't one thing that turns the opposite sex on." He gives her a nod in the affirmative. "So, is the saying true for Turians?"

Confused, he turns to her to see her not facing him, but instead giving a sidelong glance and the corner of her mouth he can see rises as their eyes meet. "Saying?" He falters, apprehensive at what she's leading him into. Even under the influence of some strong Asari drinks and she's still able to make him stumble.

"You know," she gestures vaguely. "You know what they all say about a guy with a long fringe," and her impersonation of a Turian inflection, though lacking the flanging subharmonics and the fact that the words filter through a translator, is actually really impressive, but it still doesn't explain what the hell she's talking about. _She probably doesn't even know what she's talking about_, he figures.

"Ugh, damn it Garrus," she throws her arms up, which causes her balance to shift but he steadies her again. "You're hopeless! You seriously need to learn human terms or you aren't getting anywhere at C-Sec."

He shakes his head, _just as well I probably don't know what 'they say about a guy with a long fringe'_ he concludes. "I don't think that I'd lose my chances for promotion because I can't understand the human need to not speak clearly and merely say what you mean."

At that she smiles that sly smirk, "that is where you are sorely mistaken my friend," but she doesn't get a chance to elaborate as the sound of her Omni-Tool alarm sounds. She quickly shuts it off cursing, "ah hell. Sorry Garrus, but I have to go. They never told me exactly when I'm expected to report in for my new posting so I have to wait around all day." Swaying a bit as takes her art bag that's been sitting on the bar the whole night, she stands she smiles up at him like she did in the restaurant where the corners of her eyes gain little creases.

Standing up as well, his hand going to her elbow as she stumbles a bit and heads out of the club. "Here, I'll walk you to the transport hub so you can get a cab to your hotel."

She snorts, "don't think I can walk, huh?" It is then that he notices he hadn't released her elbow which is strange because normally Turians tend to not touch others very much unless it's in a private and intimate setting. Letting her go he resolves to remain close to her side, to offer support should she need it but to give her space if she chooses. She remains at the same distance, oblivious to his inner dilemma, "How is it that I'm stumbling around like it's my twenty-first birthday and you are perfectly honky dory?"

Surprisingly, even though he has no clue what 'honky dory' is, he understands what she is asking. "Because I have work tomorrow morning and although I warned you to take the _Asari Blastari_ easy you downed as many as you could get your hands on."

She breaks into giggles again, "God that drink name is horrible and I almost was drunk enough to forget that I had to stoop to the level to order it until you ruined it." At that she shrugs her elbow into his side but hitting his C-Sec armor. "Ow," she rubs at it, and the bag on her shoulder falls down to her elbow, which has her stumbling into him. "Why are you wearing your armor?" A pause, "Oh right."

He chuckles, "yeah 'oh right.' You demanded I take you somewhere to eat before I even had a chance to realize I was off duty."

"Poor widdle baby Gwarrus," and that has her giggling so hard that he has to hold her with both arms as they approach the transport.

"In all seriousness, Garrus, thanks." She looks to him and her eyes aren't hazy from the liquor flowing through her body and Garrus finds himself smiling down at her, to which she returns with her own eye creasing one. "I had a lot of fun today. Kinda sucks that it had to happen on the last day of shore leave" her smile falls a fraction and a shadow crosses her face, "but now I at least know two fun places to go when I visit the Citadel," she jokes as she shoves the bag back up to her shoulder but her smile doesn't rise back up.

Quickly Garrus pulls up his Omni-Tool interface and sync up with Jane's. "Here is my Omni-Tool and extranet addresses. Let me know when you get your next leave on the Citadel. Maybe then I can show you to some of the _real_ stores the Citadel has to offer," looking pointedly at the bag hanging off her shoulder.

She chuckles in response but nods as she steps into the cab. As he is closing the door behind her she looks back and smiles again and with no traces of the shadow that grazed her face just moments ago to be seen, he finds himself smiling back with that soft thrum.


	6. Chapter 6

~Jane~

Finding herself at Rio de Janeiro for N training for close to six months had Jane on edge. She was damn proud to find that she was referred into the program by a higher up, but she was also less than happy to be back on Earth after leaving eight years ago. Looking back on her shore leave and the unintentional friend she had made of a local Turian cop helped to calm her nerves enough to focus on her training.

Each day consisted of 20 hours of grueling combat training with little food or sleep in the dirtiest, most encumbering environment she could imagine. Every candidate was put into a small group with others who the evaluators believed complimented their skills and together they were to work as a squad through the obstacles.

During the four hours that Jane found herself trying to catch her breath and catch a bite to eat, she and the other candidates were allowed access to their Omni-Tools for a chance to check the extranet, send and receive messages from family, chat amongst themselves, or any other activity not related to training. It wasn't necessarily time off, but it was close enough to relax.

Using this time to follow up on the promise she made herself on the Citadel to try and open up and give herself a chance to develop friendships and attachments since Akuze. Jane approached the other two members of her squad, but a handful of jokes back and forth and a failed attempt from them to try and get her to tell stories of her personal live later she found herself back to square one.

She couldn't understand, it had felt so natural and genuine on the Citadel with Garrus, but when she tried the same here, where she could at least bond over their training together, she found everything to be too forced if it went past jokes and banter. Thinking that perhaps the ease she had found on the Citadel was just a fluke and one time only she sent Garrus a message during one of the breathers in her training. Nothing too big, just a simple "hey, what's up?"

Almost immediately he responds back, "Nothing. I'm at my lunch. Missing the Citadel already? It's only been a week." Reading his response, she got another message, "Or could it be that you've just missed me? I know it's hard to be away from such a charming person such as myself." At that she laughs quietly.

It wasn't a fluke then as she fell into familiarity that was natural between the two. "I don't know, I think I remember it was you who kept finding _me_ after your supposed work hours." From then on Jane would message Garrus whenever she was allowed her four hour break from N training.

In the beginning, their conversations were simple. He'd tell her how things were on the Citadel and at his posting in C-Sec while she would relay whatever had happened during training. Eventually it had led to the two sharing stories from their previous postings in the military. Often times their stories would lead to each explaining a certain aspect of their culture that corresponded and gave certain context.

Soon, they were only talking about common cultural things that to each of them seemed obvious but when told to someone outside their race, it became much like telling another story, much like the instance in the restaurant.

The talks of their people and ways led to each telling stories of growing up. Garrus told of how he, like every other Turian, went into the military at fifteen. Jane spoke of her time in the Reds, an Earth gang that she joined at the age of ten to keep herself off the streets.

At first she was ashamed that she had felt so at ease that she let slip a darker part of her past. The last thing she wanted was to run Garrus off with the knowledge of what she did, the laws she broke, the less than reputable things she did, the people she crossed, but he didn't react at all how she expected.

Having matured faster than most girls her age, Jane had a body that looked older than she was with a little makeup to hide her young face. This led to her working as a pickpocket and runner of supplies until she was fourteen when the Reds then had her start preforming in the strip club they ran most of their jobs and business out of. She would also flirt with men that came in in order to trick them into following her somewhere where she or other members could ambush and rob them. She wasn't proud of what she did, but it was how she survived so she wasn't going to wish she hadn't done the things she did.

She had expected him to be angry, but what she hadn't anticipated was for him to be livid at the Reds for what she went through. He cursed that someone would treat a child to such abuse and what she never guessed to hear from him was an apology. He didn't pity her like the few others she had ever revealed her past to and for that she silently thanked him. Eventually, when he had sufficiently ranted about the injustice of forcing a child into such a situation she admitted that despite how it had all played out, she wouldn't want to have not gone through it.

Confused, he questioned her reasoning and Jane explained that the most traumatization she gained from what she went through was that she had a hard time making lasting relationships, both intimate and not. She remembers what it was like on the streets before joining the Reds. She also remembered the various other tasks that were handed to members and how the member's said safety wasn't guaranteed. All of that considered, she'd rather have had the job in the Reds that she was given. After some thought, he agreed.

One day, during their conversations, Garrus began to tell Jane of his family. He told her about his father, a as by-the-book Turian as they come that Garrus found himself always at odds with, his younger sister, who he would constantly find ways to get into trouble with as a kid, and his mother, the one person in the entire galaxy he found himself looking up to. As he wrote of them and his childhood home she could imagine the wonders of his childhood and she felt at a lost with nothing to quite compare it to.

As his stories painted a picture of what a childhood should look like she thought back to her own. Everyone, including the Alliance, believes she was an orphan with no known parents, but the truth is, she knows exactly who her mother was.

To say Jane was an accident that her mother didn't expect would be a severe understatement. Her mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. Her drug of choice was Blue Sand, a mixture of methamphetamine and Red Sand, a drug that simulated biotic abilities. Thinking back, her mother's use of Blue Sand while pregnant was probably the cause for Jane's eezo exposure.

Her father was one of her mother's clients, which one is anyone's clue, and at the time of her delivery her mother's _handler_ had simply taken her to one of their clients that was a doctor during daylight hours. With the wonders of blackmail, the doctor delivered Jane without a being at a hospital and her mother took her home with the hopes that when she grew old enough she could continue the family business.

Her childhood consisted of living within a one bedroom apartment and being locked wither in the one room, which was luckily hers, or outside in the complex's hallway while her mother "entertained guests". Sometimes Jane would find a way to attend public school and was thankful for the meals provided due to the fact that there was no guarantee her mother didn't use her grocery money on her habit.

One day, when Jane was eight, she arrived from school to an open apartment and her mother lying on her sofa bed, unresponsive. She was naked, so Jane figured she had had a client over, and had a tie around her arm, a needle within reach. When Jane reached out and touched her skin, her mother was ice cold and her face stared blankly into the ceiling. Quietly Jane covered her mother's body, walked to the apartment next door, and dialed the emergency number.

When the authorities arrived, Jane was nowhere to be found. She still doesn't know why she left or why she didn't cry over her mother's death.

It wasn't until close to the end of her six months of training that Jane felt she needed to tell Garrus everything. Their conversations had turned to covering everything and anything that came to mind, from everyday occurrences to past memories, and she felt so natural and at ease. She couldn't quite explain why after vowing to tell no one of her mother she thought that now was the time and Garrus was the right person to lay the burden on.

He had laid his troubles of his childhood growing up with a father he felt treated him like a subordinate and not a son. A sister who was treated like she could do no wrong and was allowed certain liberties he felt he hadn't been given. Also, now that he was in C-Sec, of having to be under scrutiny by his father once again but this time at his work. He even told her about how in the military he was offered special training to join the Spectres, the elite forces of the Citadel Council themselves, but his father had gone behind his back and pulled some strings to get Garrus denied. Perhaps it was Garrus first offering his own demons that made Jane feel comfortable enough to broach the topic of her own.

She was on the last week of N training and all that was left was testing within a classroom setting and then the awarding of N-1 to all those who passed the six months when she broached the topic by asking if she could tell him something personal. It was only his light hearted response of "as humans say, 'lay it on me'" that helped her win her internal battle and tell him her darkest secret.

She thanked him afterwards for letting her lift the weight off her shoulders, to which he responded that anytime she needed someone to help carry her burdens he'd be there and that he was proud that she trusted him enough to have him be the first she ever told. He thanked her and assured that her secret would never be heard from his side. She never imagined he would thank her for her revealing the crap she lived through, she never expected anyone to want to thank her for that, but he did and once again, he didn't treat her with pity or any different than before she had laid her past out.

With their lives laid out before each other they found that their conversations didn't change despite the knowledge of what lay behind each of their internal walls. They still were able to joke, flirt shamelessly, brag, and retell old stories as if they had known each other years. It was an unusual feeling for Jane, but not one she found disturbing and in fact she couldn't have asked for anything better.


	7. Chapter 7

~Garrus~

To say Garrus was happy was an understatement. Today Jane would be arriving on the Citadel for her shore leave that would last for close to two months in celebration of completing her first step of Interplanetary Combatives Training, officially referred to as N-Training.

Work patrolling the Wards had made Garrus consider applying for admittance into the Investigations Division of C-Sec. He felt that the best place to be to help more people in need would be to be able to discover the secret crimes beneath what the tourists and outside observers saw. The best place to do just that was none other than Investigations. The only thing holding him back from submitting his application was the knowledge that his father had every chance of becoming his superior at one time or another.

For most the idea of a family member being a superior would seem like an unfair advantage and foolish mistake in the chain of command, but when it came to Turians like his father, the exact opposite would occur. His father was his toughest critic and often times held him at a higher standard merely because he was related.

For as long as Garrus could remember, his father represented anything, and everything, that could go wrong for any plan Garrus laid out. When Garrus would excel in his schooling as a child his father would often insist that his instructors were not challenging him enough or tended to add his own curriculum to Garrus' schooling. He knew that his father would love nothing more than to pick apart his cases at any and every chance he got.

Receiving a message from Jane said saying that the ship she was on was beginning its docking procedures he decides to drop his current train of thought and get ready to head to the docks to meet her when the ship was done docking, which usually took close to an hour.

Leaving work and getting a transport to the dock took nearly the whole hour and Garrus hoped that if she was already out, she wasn't waiting for too long. Just as he arrived to the visitor's lobby for her dock he saw her entering from the ramp.

He could tell she was tired, thanks to him gaining more experience in human expressions from his daily patrols talking to citizens, but as she found him across the way her face lit up in a smile he was sure she hadn't felt during the entire six months. He made his way up to her as she looked him up and down. "Look at you, all spiffy in your new armor."

He was surprised she could tell the subtle differences between the recruit armor and the Enforcement Division's armor he wore now. As a Turian she would've been able to see that the material was a bit thicker and constituted it as a Light Armor instead of the reinforced cloth uniform he wore six months ago, but usually humans weren't that observant. "I'm surprised you could tell that this is different. Most humans think all Turian clothing looks the same." He smirked.

She squinted and turned her head slightly to the side. "I can't tell if I should be proud of my observation or slightly insulted at how racist that sounded," she joked, to which he responded with a very human shrug, but by her snickering he assumes he didn't quite master it. "In either case, I sketch people and things as a hobby, noticing tiny details kinda comes with the territory. All that's missing is a helmet to hide that ugly mug of yours and it'd be perfect!"

"Are you kidding? It'd be a crime to deny everyone me in all my glory." He crosses his arms and sets his weight off to one side while smirking.

She makes a weird noise by blowing air past her lips as she waves one hand dismissively, "Oh the poor public." They each return smiles, but hers quickly drops to a grimace as she drops the duffel bag she had slung over one shoulder to the ground with a thunk. "Jesus, that thing is way too heavy for my sore arms…" He reaches out and grabs the bag's strap and shrugs off her weak protest. "Well that's just insulting," she says as he slings it over his own shoulder effortlessly.

"Come on, let's get you set up in your hotel and I can take you to a new place that just opened up. It claims to have the best human cuisine on the Citadel." He motions towards the transport hub.

She shrugs and follows, "being the only place doesn't always mean it's the best, Garrus."

He shakes his head at that. "I didn't say that, you difficult woman…"

"Crap!" she cuts in. When he stops and looks to her to see what was the matter and finds her quickly scanning through her Omni-Tool interface. "Sorry to cut you off," she looks up to him apologetically then back down. "Those bastards," she says under her breath.

"You okay?" he stops and turns completely to her, concerned.

She starts, looking up to him confused, then shakes her head with a half-smile, "yeah, sorry for the mini freak out. Usually the Alliance has a special with a local hotel - the owner is ex-Alliance I think - for their soldiers that take shore leave on the Citadel. The deal is that if you give them a big enough heads up they can reserve a room for cheaper than usual cost to stay for leave." She sighs, "I _had_ sent them a message about two weeks ago requesting that they reserve a room, to which they assured me it was saved, but then this morning on the ship right before getting out of communications range they said they messed up my booking. Now I'm stuck paying full price for a room until a room clears, which is total bull."

Garrus knew the hotels on the Citadel charged unreasonable prices and, although she probably made a similar amount of pay as he did, the cost would take a large portion of her pay in order to give her somewhere at least somewhat comfortable to stay. Still hearing her ranting, _damn, can she talk when she gets mad_, he deciding to interject before she got much more worked up. "You can stay with me," he offered.

Just as sudden as her rant started, it stopped, and she turned to Garrus. "I can't do that." Shaking her head a bit with a scowl, "I'm fine with a room for a few days, just lost myself a bit. Must be the lack of sleep." Her smile is weak but no less genuine.

At her reluctance he puts his hand on her shoulder, not condescending, but a solid weight. "It's no problem. If you're fine with the size of my apartment then you're welcome to stay out that time where you don't have to pay the ridiculous prices hotels charge."

She sighs and her shoulders relax, "Saving me from paying out the ass huh?" She smirks, then nods, the action more to herself than him, as if making a decision. "Okay, but I'll only shack up until they get a room. Thanks Garrus."

"Anytime," he smiles and they continue to make their way to the cab terminal to head off to his apartment to drop her things off.

After dropping off her things to his apartment while she waited in the taxi Garrus took Jane to enjoy a meal at the restaurant he told her about. Luckily, next door was a Turian place that he could place an order for himself and have it delivered to the human eatery.

The owners were more than happy to allow him to eat with Jane, thinking it a great opportunity to start a possible joint arrangement between the two establishments for better business. Either way, Garrus was just happy that the two of them could enjoy a meal that wasn't military grade food stuffs for her or cheap take-out for him.

When he asked about her food she responded with a "better than gruel I have to slather with ketchup or hot sauce." He figured that probably meant it wasn't the best and apologized for such which she shrugged off with a smile. The rest of their meal entailed the two catching up on anything that had happened from the time the last messaged each other and now.

Now found Garrus and Jane outside his apartment. It was still somewhat early, but from the barely contained yawns that escaped, Jane was ready to call it a night. As the lock on his door changed from the locked red to open green, he stood to the side to allow her access before him.

His apartment consisted of one large room with kitchen facilities - a sink, countertop, stove, and fridge along one wall - and a living area – a single couch in front of a wall mounted television – and a door that led to the bedroom with attached bathroom. Picking up her duffel bag from where he laid it earlier by the door Garrus starts to make his way to the bedroom when she stops him.

"Whoa," she rushed over and grabs the bag out of his hands. "No sir, I am not taking your bed. I got the couch."

As she manages to get him to release it, she receives a stern look. "Jane, you've been getting at most a few hours of sleep a day for the past six months. I know humans need more sleep than that." At her continued refusal he crosses his arms and stands to his full height, looking down on her, and she stares right back. "You're taking the bed."

She squints, gauging him, then after a long and tense silence, she smiles at some internal joke. "Nope," she flippantly responds while turning around, walking to the couch and flopping down.

_Did she walk away from a stare down?_ he baffles. He has to give it to her, staring down, or in her case up, a Turian tended to end with the other party giving in, but Jane did not bow. If anything, she treated Garrus as if he had already lost the battle, he just didn't know it yet. He's pretty sure she was also the only one who would ever be able to get away with something like that, and Garrus was happy to admit he was perfectly fine with it.

Sighing, he walked into his bedroom to at least grab her a pillow and blanket to sleep with. Returning to hand it to her he found her scrolling through her Omni-Tool, seeming to look for something.

"I saw an advertisement for a movie that came out recently," she says without looking up as she takes the pillow and folds it under her head one handed. The blanket, he puts over the back of the couch. "Looks like fun, want to see it?" She looks over the lit interface to him as he pushes her still shoed feet off from hanging over the couch armrest and sits down. The move had her swinging her whole body so she was sitting up and with that she was able to show him the said movie downloading on her Tool.

"Sure," he tries to shrug, which from her lack of laughter he must have at least accomplished enough to translate. With that he pulls up his own Tool to transfer to his television for the both of them to see.

By what he could tell as he keyed it up and she settled in with the blanket, the movie was some horror vid about an Asari Commando squad on a desolate planet. Not what he'd usually watch, but what the hell, its Jane's time off. It wouldn't really matter if they watched a reading of Elcor poetry so long as she got time to relax, the fact that she decided to share her time with him was just a bonus.

Half way through the movie, the two of them laughing at the horrible acting, huge plot holes, and glaringly bad special effects, Garrus found that Jane was starting to get quieter and quieter and slower to respond. Looking to her, he found her curled and wrapped up in the blanket in her corner of the couch. Smiling to himself, he stopped the movie and got up to help her into a more comfortable position.

As he unwrapped the blanket so she could stretch out, she stirred a bit, saying something about the fact that his couch 'was more comfortable than it looked.' Settling back into a more comfortable sleeping position with her back to him. Covering her back up with the blanket, Garrus left her to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

~Jane~

She couldn't escape the screams of man and monster.

When they arrived it was to investigate the missing colonists, but in a short time she found her squad and herself fighting to survive from a monster that lay under the ground in the dark of night and far from the rescue shuttle's landing zone. Nothing in her training told of an alien creature that could burrow and that could take ever bullet without slowing.

First to go were the unlucky. Two were crushed under a fallen prefab unit's roof, weighed down by the satellite it supported. One of them, their squad leader, had survived but was pinned and others had tried to lift it up to free him, but, when the ground shook, the creature returned. Those who hadn't run or had the chance to drop what they were holding were lost to the sounds of screams. Jane is ashamed to say that she was too much of a coward to stay behind.

Another group found out too late that there were more than one creature buried under the surface of Akuze. As they focused their fire on one, another surfaced directly below their position and devoured them before anyone knew what had happened. Their absence was only noticed when they didn't respond to an order to move forward.

Second to be lost were the clumsy. They had found that if they found a prefab to climb onto while the thing was under the surface, they could confuse it into thinking it had lost them and they were safe until it resurfaced. The roofs had a short wall all around that they could crouch behind to give cover to shoot at it when it surfaced to attract its attention should a group need to move.

One private, she never had a chance to remember her name, tripped over a root as she ran with her group and her voice could be heard before it became muffled, then silenced, as she was dragged under. Another was lost when he stepped into a hole while running and broke his leg. Everyone had been running for so long that no one was strong enough to carry him. Jane regrets not standing up to her fellow soldiers and superior officer to not leave him behind.

The third group of soldiers to be lost consisted of the slow. Everyone found out too late that Akuze's night cycle lasted close to ten hours of its eighteen hour day. After running and fighting the horrors of the planet for nearly eight hours, some began to feel the fatigue overpower their waning adrenaline.

Over the night, the marines lost a total of fifteen people to the painful deaths of being plowed over, dragged under, or eaten by the monsters because they were simply slower than everyone else. Jane distinctly remembers a few fellow members using any means to create obstacles for others and she never spoke against it.

The last group was lost because they ran out of ammunition and explosives. By that time, Jane was left with leadership only fifteen of her fellow soldiers.

When word came of rescue, the arrival time was set for after daybreak, a little over an hour away. Jane and her remaining men had to find a way to divert the attentions of the monsters when that time came so they could escape without the fear of the rescue shuttle falling for the same trap they did.

One of the remaining soldiers was a tank engineer, Reynolds she thinks his name was, who devised a plan to automate one of the colony's drilling vehicle so that they could start it as rescue entered the atmosphere to lure the creatures away from the landing zone. The trick wouldn't last long as the things were so fast under the surface so they couldn't test the plan beforehand, so Jane decided to place the explosives on the vehicle's hull. The explosives were useless for anything other than distractions, they had found, unless someone managed to get them into the beast's mouths, which often ended in that person's death. With plan in mind, the marines held off the beasts, loosing another eight in their fight, until word came of the shuttle entering the atmosphere.

Ordering the remaining soldiers to give cover to Reynolds as he rigged up the driller, Jane believed the worst was over. She couldn't have been more wrong.

As the driller began its start-up protocol and slowly lurch forward, the explosives rigged to blow once it reached a big enough distance from Reynolds' Omni-Tool, she and the covering fire began to move closer to the extraction point. Given the hectic situation, she hadn't noticed Reynolds wasn't with them and was calling out that the explosives weren't responding to his Tool.

None of them expected the tremor that rocked the ground beneath their feet and it wasn't until after the fact that they realized it wasn't from the monsters in the ground. The explosives had been damaged sometime in the night and Reynolds had been distracted enough from the readings from his Omni-Tool that he hadn't put enough space between himself and the explosion. With six of them left, Jane had no choice but to order them to continue to hold out as planned and hope the vehicle was functional enough to distract at least one of the beasts.

One of the creatures seemed to have fallen for the distraction, but they were still left to face one with the knowledge that extraction had just gotten that much more dangerous. Rescue couldn't land with the creature still on the offense but it seemed to be wounded, if the blue liquid seeping from its mouth was any indication. Jane hoped that what little of their ammo was left would at least make it think they weren't worth the effort to try and turn into dinner.

As she and her remaining squad put everything they had into the beast, it let them know it had one more horror to inflict. Rearing its head back, thing throwing it forward, it unleashed an acid straight at the group.

The three soldiers it hit directly had their suits soaked through immediately, their agonized screams ringing in Jane's ears and the chemical smell of melting armor and flesh stinging her nose. The creature reared back again and everyone prepared to dodge the next attack.

As it spit, they all rushed into different directions away from it. As it hit the ground, it splashed and two soldiers were caught in it. One had it splash along her chest and neck, causing her to cough and choke through her shrieks of pain. The other was hit on his legs and collapsed as it ate through the plating, one long yell before shock took him.

There were only two of them left, Jane and a lieutenant named Jameson, when word came that the shuttle was coming in hot. Giving up every pretense of holding the beast off, the two took off running towards the extraction point. Jane's slightly lighter armor making her able to run ahead of Jameson but close enough to hear his huffs of breath. There was no way she would lose the last person this close to the end.

With the shuttle in sight, Jane felt the dreaded tremor of the ground that signaled when the horrid nightmare surfaced. Refusing to turn around and instead pushing her legs for what little was left, she called to Jameson to 'just push a bit more, almost there.' She would never have imagined the pain that came next.

Jameson had taken the brunt of the beast's hit and was downed immediately and too suddenly to even cry out before hitting the ground and going still. Because of his position right behind her, Jane was only hit with splash, but the pain was unimaginable as she stumbled right before reaching the shuttle. She didn't even feel when the hands that pulled her up or the shift in momentum as it rose up and out of the atmosphere.

Instead, she was overpowered by the smell of burning flesh and ceramic plating, the liquid burning slithering all along her back, the dark corners enclosing her vision, and the inhuman, anguished screaming escaping her lips.


	9. Chapter 9

~Jane~

She was dying.

Her skin was falling off as the acid ate it away and the very air stung as it caressed her like needles across every nerve. She had to get her suit off, had to peel whatever the acid touched off her, she had to or she'd be eaten alive. Why the hell was someone holding her down?

Jumping awake with a scream, Jane found herself on a couch in a dark room. _Garrus' apartment, I'm in Garrus' apartment, on Garrus' couch,_ she assured herself. It was only as she was calming down that she noticed a figure crouched to the side of her.

As her eyes adjusted she noticed Garrus holding his hand up to his face. Getting a better look as he opened up his Omni-Tool, the room lighting up with a dim glow, she saw that he was rubbing the grooves that ran along the bridge of his nose.

She instantly knew he must have been trying to wake her and, in return, she punched him as she came to and felt bad immediately. She knew a Turian's nose was sensitive and although hard to harm, a good hit in the right spot would defiantly ruin their day. "Damn," she cursed, "I'm so sorry, Garrus. I didn't know…"

"No it's alright," he raised his free hand. "I should've known not to wake a dreaming soldier." He lowered his hand from his face and flicked out a mandible in a smile but she couldn't bring herself to mirror his good will. Mandible falling back into place, he looked at her with concern in his eyes and asked, "Want to talk about it?"

She dropped her head and shook it to the negative. "Not really. Thanks, but no."

He nods when she raises her eyes back to his while standing up. He motions to his bedroom, "You've only been asleep for about five and a half hours. I don't need to sleep anymore, so you can take the bed." He steps back as she stands up and continues, "The room will just go to waste otherwise."

She yawns, but shakes her head again. "I'm not really tired anymore," and she doesn't lie. The nightmares did a good job of making her give up the pretense of sleep for the rest of the night.

He shrugs, obviously not wanting to hound her, and for that she's grateful, and pulls up his Omni-Tool again. "I'm sure you can order some food to be delivered if you're hungry. I still have some time before work that I was just going to spend either here or picking something up. If you want, I can stay here and eat with you." The last bit he says in such a way that it is her decision.

Nodding, she pulls open her Tool and gets a transfer from his own of their location information so she can order deliveries easier. She scrolls through the options and picks a place that seems nearby and orders a coffee. She is nowhere close to being hungry with her dream still clear in her mind, but she orders a bagel as well just in case she gets hungry later.

He leaves to his room and quickly returns with a chair. He places in on the edge of the kitchen area for her to sit instead of with her back to him if she were to sit on the couch. Sitting down, she watches him as he opens his fridge and scans its contents and smiles when she catches sight of the insides of said fridge.

It was almost completely empty with ten items in it at most from what Jane could see. The fact that he had to scan it made the image even better and she couldn't help but let out a laugh from behind her hand. He looks over his shoulder at her amusement and flicks his mandible and pulls out a square container. He then walks to the stove, removes a pan from the cabinet hanging above it, sets the pan on the stove top, and turns on the burner.

About ten minutes later, the door chimes and she moves to answer it to leave him to continue with his cooking. Accepting the coffee, still hot, and bagel, just as equally warm, she pays for the meal and returns to the kitchen area. She places her meal down on the counter and heads over to her things.

Digging through it, she finds what she's looking for, a chocolate bar she purchased when she was waiting on Earth for her flight here to the Citadel. She returns to the kitchen just as he finishes heating what looks to her like noodles but thick and dark blue, and pours it onto a plate.

"Come on," he motions to the couch with his plate in one hand and the bag containing her bagel in the other, but stops short when he sees the candy bar and tilts his head to the side in confusion. "I don't know much about human diets, but I do know that _that_," he points to the chocolate, "is not proper breakfast food."

She smirks, "you _know_ that, huh? I think you're far from an expert." She grabs her coffee and sits down next to him on the couch. "One human friend does not make you an expert."

He scoffs, "if that friend is you, it should." He takes a bite as she laughs, finding that her nightmare is not at the forefront of her mind at the moment.

Breaking off a piece of the chocolate, she opens the coffee and places the piece in, swirling the cup a bit to start to melt it. She sees him watch and at the silent question in his eyes she shrugs and says, "I don't much like the taste of coffee."

"You know what helps get rid of that coffee flavor? Not drinking coffee," he supplies after swallowing his own dish.

She waves him off as she replaces the lid. "I need coffee to wake me up." She tries a sip, it is still a bit strong but it's the best she can do. Usually she has creamer to mix in with the coffee, but when she placed the order there was no option to order any. "So to fix my problem, I put chocolate and cream to mask the coffee flavor." Shaking his head, Garrus gives up and allows her to sip her coffee as he finishes off his meal and the two enjoy the companionable silence.

Shortly after finishing their meals and Garrus cleaning up his mess in the kitchen, he leaves for work. He has given her access to the door lock in case she wants to leave during the day and explore the Citadel and she may take up that offer, but for now she finds that she wants to wash the remnants of her nightmare from her skin.

As Jane strips the clothes from her body, she is left with only her reflection and what she sees is testament to the fact that her dreams of Thresher Maws is not merely the make-believe of subconscious, but the reliving of memory.

Covering her entire back, from over her shoulders to the top of her butt cheeks, are scars from where the Maw's acid splashed onto her. The injury has since healed, but in the burn's place there lies the rippled and slightly discolored skin that stretch and pull when she turns this way or that.

Jane never was one for looks and it isn't their appearance that really bother her, she takes it as a reminder of what she survived and how she vowed to never lose another squad if she ever had any say. What does bother her is the memories the bring back to mind when her clothing rubs them a certain way.

As she starts the showers and begins to wash herself down she remembers that for a time, from about '78 until a few months ago, she hadn't thought about Akuze and even felt like she had overcome the pain of losing friends.

She couldn't figure out why they had started to return and why they were just as vivid, if not worse, than the real event. Each team member's death felt as if she was the one dying - she could feel every broken bone, every burn, the very pressure of the ground and beast swallowing her up - and she had never experienced that before in her dreams. What could have changed for her to suddenly start to relive the worst part of her life and the loss of the first group of people she had ever come close to?

The realization, when it came to her at light speed, nearly knocked her off her feet.


	10. Chapter 10

~Garrus~

To say Garrus was enjoying Jane's time off would be a great disservice to all the pleasure he got from having her around. A few days into her leave with no word concerning her hotel room, he was able to convince her to give up on them and just stay at his place. Her agreement came with a promise to allow her to bring some food to keep in his fridge, which was fine by him so long as she was responsible for cooking her own meals.

At just about a week into her vacation, he has already taken her to some of his favorite dining places that serve both chirality options and found that not all places that are good at cooking Turian food are good at the levo dishes they cook. She quickly shook off any apologies he tried to give her at that, and assured him that 'you never know until you try it.'

He had also taken her to visit some of the local own shops that sold curiosities from every species' home planets. She seemed to enjoy looking into all the windows of the shops and sometimes going in to ask questions about the more curious looking items, often frustrating the shop owners with her childlike awe. After those shops, he took her to local sights that weren't typically visited by tourists, but were still something you could only see on the Citadel. One such sight was a viewport located on one of the market sections of the Lower Wards where visitors could watch large ships drift in and out of the docks.

Tonight, they had plans to catch a game of Clawball that she had showed interest in when she saw the advertisement a few nights back. He had explained what the game was and how it was usually played at the time of her declaration, but she just shrugged and dismissed any more explanation, saying she would figure it out as they went along.

Sitting down to the game in his most comfortable clothes and 'pajamas' for her, a bowl of some strange white crumbs of food for her and some Gourra for himself - that was fun explaining the small, hard fruit to her - he found her quickly catching on to the concept of the game. In time, she was cheering along with the crowd at every score and booing, throwing pieces of her food at the screen, at every bad call. It was definitely good to see her enjoying herself and relaxing, he thought.

She may not have wanted him to notice, but he could see the darkness to her skin that lay under her eyes. Now that she had had time to get proper time to sleep, and yet wasn't getting the rest she needed, he realized they were not just from the exhaustion she must have had her training. She was still having nightmares every night as well, though her reactions were less violent and quieter than that first night.

It wasn't as if he was listening in to her from his room when he worked at his terminal, but he couldn't help that Turians had better hearing than most. He assumed she knew of this fact if the first few moments in their morning meals where she would divert her attention away from him were any indication.

He didn't like that she kept it to herself, but he understood the want to know reveal all of the things that could make someone feel or seem weak in the eyes of another. He just wished that he could assure her that she shouldn't need to feel the shame that he say reflected in her eyes every time she looked away, but he respected her too much to say anything to bring attention to something she was trying to hide.

She would say something if and when she felt like it was time, he was certain of it. He just wished that she didn't have to keep torturing herself and could enjoy her time off. If distracting her throughout the day with anything from sending her messages and jokes from work to taking her to any store, restaurant, or sight he could think up, then so be it. He was proud to be the one to take that upon himself.

Being pulled out of his thoughts by a small whimper, Garrus looks over to Jane leaning her head against her arm rest and the game results playing across the screen. He stands up and takes her bowl from her lap, placing it on the floor far enough away so that neither of them would step in it.

Not touching her in case she tries to punch him again when she wake he speaks softly over the television, "Jane," she stirs a bit, "Jane wake up."

Slowly, she opens her eyes, squints at him, then laughs. "Damn, did I miss everything?" He shrugs, having not really paid enough attention to tell her one way or the other, and offers his hand to pull her up, which she takes sleepily. "Man, I'm getting old. Here, let me help clean up."

Before she can reach to her bowl he stops her and smiles, "how about you go to bed and I'll clean up."

Her face twists into confusion, "I can't sleep on the couch while you clean. How rude…"

He shakes his head, in exasperation and to show her the negative, and turns her towards his room. "How about you sleep in my room tonight." He has to push along her back lightly to keep her moving as she puts up resistance. She will eventually learn that he is more stubborn and patient than she is, but until that day, he will just have to make himself blatantly clear. "You haven't been sleeping well and I only need four hours of sleep in one sitting, so you take the bed," he says as he shoves her gently over the room's threshold.

His bedroom is slightly smaller than his living and kitchen area with the bed across from the door out into the center of the room, a desk with his terminal in the corner to its right, a small closet set into the wall to the left of his bed, and a door next to that leading to the bathroom. As she scans the room, her focus lands on the bed and she starts to laugh. "What's wrong with you?" he looks to her and asks. _She definitely needs sleep_.

"Garrus, you're bed looks like a bowl. I don't know whether I should be getting ready to sleep in it or drink soup out of it," she gets out through her laughter that seems a bit excessive to him. He doesn't really want her to fall out of the cheerful mood she's in so he looks to his bed to figure out what she means.

His bed is a typical Turian bed, a round bed that dips into the middle slightly set into a frame that creates a higher lip so that it can then be filled with pillows to help support the different shapes of the occupants' carapaces, fringes, and spurs. Okay, now that he looks at it, if the pillows are removed it looks like a shallow bowl. Shaking his head he smiles, "If you're done insulting my sleeping arrangements," she nods with a smile of her own. "It shouldn't be too bad and if the pillows bother you, you can remove them and it should more resemble a human style bed, just with a slight curve."

She yawns, "Thanks, I'm sure it'll be fine," she pats him on the forearm, "stop fretting. I've slept in worse places back at ICT, so I think I can manage a pile of fluffy pillows. Now let me just brush my teeth and then we will see how this _bed_ stakes up." Heading to her bag in the other room she grabs something and then heads into the bathroom to clean her teeth like he's seen her do every morning and evening.

Finished with her cleaning a few moments later and jumping in the bed, he hears a muffle but had no clue what she's saying. "What?" he questions.

"I said," she turns her head out of the pillows, "I stand corrected, this bed is amazing." She wiggles deeper into the pillows. "I'm not leaving here, tell the Alliance I quit."

He laughs as he turns off the lights and closes the bedroom door with hopes that tonight she will get the chance to sleep peacefully through the night.


	11. Chapter 11

~Jane~

Last night was the first night that Jane actually slept through to the morning and woke to find that Garrus had already gone to work. The nightmares were still there, but they were vague and fuzzy so she took it as a win for sleep.

She now found herself walking along Tayseri Ward with no real direction, just the intention to explore and see where her feet take her. Garrus had shown her some of the more key locations of the Ward a couple of days ago, but they were limited to what they could see due to his uneven shifts. Today she had already found a group of Salarian street performers who had let her sketch them as they wowed a crowd outside the concert hall with a small musical optics show as a teaser for what those who bought tickets to tonight's show were in for.

Now, she was strolling along the dining section of the Ward to see the numerous eateries of the various peoples of the galaxy. From human to Asari, Turian to Krogan, she even saw some Volus, Elcor, and one small Quarian, the storefronts were like a quick glance at the galaxy. She scanned over the various signs in various languages when her eyes landed on one in particular.

Boosting 'authentic Palaven cuisine' was a fine, but small, restaurant named Macendonyia's. The exterior didn't reveal much but with a claim like the one it had, she had to check it out. Maybe it could be better than the place Garrus took her last leave that he said was the closest he came to replicating a meal from home. If it was, then she could get him a plate as a thank you for letting her freeload at his apartment.

She walks into the door and into the small establishment. The dining area itself is no bigger than Garrus' whole apartment and only one table has customers seated at it, three males - a copper-tan with white markings across his face, sweeping back from his cheek plates, and down his fringe, a dark brown with curving, white markings on his face and fringe, and a silver one whose markings she can't see because his back is to her. They notice her and from their reactions, they don't like her. _Typical Turian superiority bull. The things I do…_she rolls her eyes.

From a door at the back she assumes is the kitchen approaches a female Turian, her plates cracked and colony paint faded with age, and Jane quickly focuses on her, hoping that she doesn't share whatever opinions the males have. "I'm sorry," she begins, bowing her head in greeting, "but I'm afraid I can't offer you anything off the menu. I only know how to cook dextro…"

"No ma'am" Jane bows her own head in respect. _She showed me respect, best I can do is return it. Thank God for my curiosity about Turian culture and asking Garrus questions until I was afraid his ears would bleed._ "I was here for a friend." If she was surprised at Jane's gesture, she doesn't show it and instead nods for Jane to continue. "He is from Palaven, but since he works here, it's been a long time since he's been home. I know he misses the food of his home and that it isn't easy to find a place that can provide it without great cost or lower quality."

"That's correct," she agrees while motioning Jane towards one of the tables so the two can sit. "I can assure you that here is the best place to find what you're looking for. I can guarantee your mate will enjoy it."

Jane holds in her protest at the 'mate,' not wanting to insult the woman by explaining that it was nothing like that, but decides to just continue with the conversation and ignore that comment. "He has off in two more days. I don't really know the best way to do this, is there a way I can get the food to take to go? Or would it be better if he were brought here to enjoy it?"

The older woman shakes her head and looks out across her restaurant, "Turian cuisine gains its touch in the way it is treated. The spices imbued, the tenderness of the meat, the grain and crop the animal was raised on. I can prepare you something and you can take it home as you please."

Sighing in relief, Jane looks to the woman, knowing in Turian culture that, when sitting, respect is shown by the lower tiered member waiting for the higher tiered to stand unless given the assurance otherwise. The woman watches her, seeming to evaluate Jane, and Jane nods yes, she is showing respect.

At Jane's passing of some unnamed test, the older woman stands and Jane follows suit. She leads Jane towards the door and before Jane can leave the woman turns. "You show great respect for someone not of our kind. I know you don't think of yourself as a mate, but you may want to reconsider if you are so at home with our ways." She holds out her hand in a very human gesture for a hand shake and Jane takes it giving it one firm shake. "I will have something made up in time for what you're planning. Come for it then." At that Jane gives the woman one final nod, in affirmative and in thanks and heads back out into the Ward.


	12. Chapter 12

~Garrus~

Sleeping in Garrus' bed the past three nights seemed to be helping with Jane's nightmares. He couldn't hear her every night talking and moving in her sleep and she seemed to be getting a bit more sleep. He could tell they were still plaguing her, but maybe she was on the way to working them out in her own way.

Either way, he was glad to see the improvement and the little signs of possibly more in time. Today was actually the first morning that he woke up and she hadn't joined him a short time later. If it meant standing firm every time she offered to sleep back on the couch and just plain ignoring any protest, then it was worth frustrating her to the point where she just resorting to throwing her hands up and mock pouting. He guessed that if she had more energy, she would most likely be putting up a bigger and better fight, but until then he would revel in his victories.

He had woken up at his usual time and immediately he stilled with his ears focused on the other room. From behind the bedroom door he couldn't pick up the familiar sounds of her weak cries and decided that his morning routine could wait until she woke. It was his day off anyways, so he didn't need to be in any hurry.

Occupying himself with reading up on specifications of some new mods for his pistol, he hadn't noticed how the time passed before the sound of the shower echoed through the apartment. Checking the time, Garrus calculated that Jane got at least another hour and a half of sleep today. Still not anywhere near what he read was healthy for a human, but he'll take what he got and figured with the way things were going she'd soon get a chance to sleep through the night soon.

The water cut off and, moments later, Jane exited the bedroom dressed in casual clothes for the day and her hair hanging over her shoulders. He had seen it down before during the mornings that she spent some time with him before he left to work, but he had never seen it dark and heavy with water.

She notices him staring and smirks. "What? Never seen a girl straight out of the shower?" she jokes as she heads into the kitchen.

He gets up from the couch and sits at the chair from his desk that has found a permanent place in the kitchen from their mornings spent together. "No, just never seen your hair wet before. I had read that it absorbs water, but never really thought it'd change so much in appearance."

Leaning into the fridge and pulling one of the orange fruits she had bought earlier with the other food to stock his kitchen. He was fine with her claiming the fridge as her own as he wasn't home to use it and it helped to alleviate the worry that she was spending all her money on delivery and eating out. "Aw," she pouts out her lower lip as she leans her hip against the counter, "don't you worry your little head. It'll be back to its boring state in a bun or ponytail in no time."

He tried his hand at another human gesture, eye rolling, that she seemed to use quite often, but knew he failed horrible at she snickered. Ignoring her he explained, "I'm not saying that I don't like it, I just like when your hair is dry better. And the ponytail and bun thing is your doing. You can leave it down if you want, I've seen plenty of humans – and you - with their hair loose that it doesn't bother me, but I might be biased because I like the color you have."

She snorts and rolls her eyes correctly, he notes, and responds, "stop, stop please." She throws her free hand against her chest. "The flattery is too much. I'm dying from your great romantic skills." As she laughs and he shakes his head, a small quirk to his mandible despite his every effort to look distraught.

When she quiets enough she takes a shallow bite of the fruit, but her face contorts as a teal juice dribbles down her throat and he recognizes the smell and color of the juice immediately.

After she had gone to the store she had told him she purchased some food for him that she thought he could have when he was looking for a quick snack or light meal. He hadn't really looked closely at what she bought, but thanked her anyways and now found that her shopping included at least one Shakta fruit, a very sweet treat usually eaten as a decadent dessert after a meal of importance or celebration.

Coughing, she grabs a towel from the counter and wipes her face as he laughs at the image, juice down the front of her shirt. "Who would've known that the great force known as humanities could be downed by a mere Shakta fruit?" he chuckles. "Did you forget how food works, Jane?"

She throws the now dirty towel across the room with a scowl, "laugh it up there buddy. I thought this was an orange. Who the hell made a dark green fruit have an orange peel?" She looks suspiciously at the cause of her ire.

"Since when do humans stick things in their mouth without double checking?" he shoots back. "Also, last I checked, anyone who knows how to eat properly doesn't drown in their food."

She glares across the room, but he can't take her seriously with the pale skin of her chin and front of her white shirt stained. "I thought it was an orange and was trying to get the peel started with my teeth." Surprisingly she takes another bite of the fruit, but without the choking from before, and speaks after swallowing, "Wasn't expecting that rush of juice, but this it actually pretty good. Here," she pulls it apart with her hands now that the thicker peel has been broken, "I was expecting this to be close to half the size once I peeled it, so I can't eat this all." She hands it to him and he shrugs and accepts his half. "It _is_ yours after all." She returns with the towel back to her original spot across the kitchen and leans against counter, cleaning up any mess she had missed.

Garrus waves off her statement, "you could throw it for all I care. You bought them, so the only money going down the disposal would've been yours." She snorts around her bite of food. "Are you even okay eating this?"

She smirks, "a little late to ask, don't you think?" She dismisses the question with a shrug and head toss but answers a moment later. "Standard Alliance entrance evaluations include testing for any alien allergies. Don't want soldiers keeling over because they ate an Asari sandwich or a Turian spit in their drink." He doesn't get a chance to remark at the oddity of her examples before she continues, "the only allergy I have is to some Salarian spice call Arra. I think they use it in some of their teas. So sorry, Garrus, won't be getting rid of me that easily." She smiles, her fruit now eaten down to the pit in her palm and her lips blue from the juice. "And what about you? I would guess species has some sort of test for those wanting to travel the universe."

He nods and swallows the bite he was working on, "Turians test before the military takes anyone off-world on tour or you could get it done at a doctor if you're planning to travel as a child before boot camp. I was the latter, with my dad working here on the Citadel sometimes my family would visit and my mom wanted to make sure my sister and I were safe." He finishes off the last of his fruit, "I only get effected by some levo plant. Don't remember the name, but I know what it looks like, and the effect is not bad, just an itchy rash if it touches any unplated skin."

She nods and excuses herself to clean her face and change her shirt and returns shortly after telling him to get 'cleaned up and spiffy' because 'they're going out on the town.' Chuckling at her still strange way of finding ways to never just speak plain, he heads to the bathroom to get a shower.

When he comes back out of his bedroom not much later with clean plates and comfortable casual wear, he finds Jane on the couch with some day time show on. She isn't really paying attention, but he doesn't know what she is really doing until he comes up beside her and sees his visor in her hands. She hasn't turned it on and doesn't look like she's trying to, she just runs her hands over the metal and instead looks at the mounting set-up at the back.

He has been without his visor since joining C-Sec, the regulations for patrol officers stating some crap about needing to present a standard visual for Citadel citizens and a unified uniform. He missed it and hating having to be without it after gaining it on his first military posting and customizing it himself. Another part of his reasoning for considering putting his name in for Investigations included the fact that he'd be allowed the visor, a superficial reason he knew but couldn't find it in himself to care. It was why he had brought home the datapad containing an application form and left it on his desk, which he now notices was sitting on the far couch cushion.

He moves over to the couch, picking up the datapad, and sitting down. Jane looks to him and hands the visor over. "I think I tossed a bit violently last night," she admits, "and I must have knocked this and that datapad off the corner of your desk. I hadn't noticed until earlier when I was picking up some of the pillows I threw around and found the two on the floor. I hope I didn't break it, it looks fancy and unique."

He chuckles at her concern and runs his hands over the visor's frame. Nothing looked wrong and he knew it'd take more than a fall to the ground to damage it. "Don't worry about it. If my visor couldn't handle a small fall then I wouldn't want to be using it."

"Did you make it yourself?" she asks.

"Not completely, it wasn't designed for a Turian, but I modified the hardware and software to fit my needs," he answers with a smile.

"Why don't you wear it? You're obviously proud of it," she returns with a smile of her own.

At that he scowls, "because of C-Sec's damn rules. It's just another thing about how they're more focused on how they look to the public than how I do my job." She puts a calming hand on his shoulder and he sighs.

"And the datapad," she motions with her head. "Don't tell me that a disgruntled Turian employee is just like a disgruntled human employee," she says with a smirk, which has him looking to her in confusion. "When someone doesn't like their boss, or their pay, or anything really, they passive aggressively try to get back at their workplace by taking office supplies."

Understanding a bit of what she's talking about, he smirks, "do you really think a _C-Sec Officer_ would steal from C-Sec to relieve stress?" She shrugs with a coy smile and he rolls his eyes, much better if the face that she doesn't crack up laughing is any sign. "The datapad is an application requesting I be considered for Investigations. I just haven't decided if I want to submit it or not." He looks down at the datapad in question, his brow plates pulling down in a frown.

"Why not?" She leans down so that she can look up to his downcast eyes. "Is it because of your dad?"

Shocked, he looks up as she settles more upright but her gaze remains focused. "You remembered that?" When he last spoke of his father to her was months ago when she was messaging him from Earth. It wasn't like he thought she would forget what he had told her, but he remembers that most of the things he said to her was in frustration and he didn't expect her to pick up on the things he didn't out right say, like how his father was still at C-Sec and not retired.

At her nod, he felt the tensions from his indecision for the past few weeks over this application begin to loosen from his shoulders. He explains to her of how he really wants to join the division because he feels he can best use his skills to help people but he is reluctant because he suspects that it would most likely mean he would come into closer contact with his father. His relationship with his father is strained enough that he can only guess what will happen when he finds himself in a working relationship with him.

After some contemplation as the two stare at the pad in his hands she speaks and breaks the silence. "I think you should do it." He looks up to her with a question on his face and his eye plates lifted slightly. "You want this, right?" He nods. "Then I say fuck it. He may always treat you like you aren't doing your job correctly, but as long as you are getting the job done, putting away the bad guys, and helping people, then you know you're doing something right." She smiles, "To hell with what your dad thinks."

He returns her smile and makes a mental note to turn in the datapad into his superior when he returns to work tomorrow evening.


	13. Chapter 13

~Jane~

Bounding on her feet in excitement, Jane leads Garrus to a small café for the two to have brunch. After she had pretty much forced him to fill out his application to get into Investigations then and there and she double checked it to insure that he didn't leave anything out, much to his chagrin, it was already too late for more than their fruit for breakfast, but too early for lunch.

As they sat and gave their orders she found it hard to keep her excitement for the day's plans bottled up. Garrus acted like she wasn't wiggling like she had to pee and though it was a nice thought, she could care less if he or anyone else thought she looked like she had a few screws loose.

In fact, she couldn't believe she was as antsy as she was. All she had planned was to treat Garrus to brunch, try to catch a showing of the musical optics performance she had seen a couple of days ago, and then return to the apartment with a special surprise in tow.

Perhaps it was the thought that the surprise consisted of the chance to give Garrus a feeling of the home he's been away from that was making it hard for Jane to sit still. She had never been good with waiting so the knowledge of the meal must be what's eating away at her patience and steel determination. Commanding herself to _get it together, dammit_seems to help calm the anxiety and she settles to her plate of some Asari styled fried sandwich.

They converse about her plans, minus the surprise, as the two clear through their meals. He seems to be open to whatever she wants to do for the day and remarks that he just wants to do anything that isn't patrolling the Wards. She smiles at the thought that she's pretty sure he doesn't suspect her to be the one treating him to the day's activities as a thanks for his hospitality. She concludes that she won't let him in on the fact until he finds that he can't pay the ticket for his meal because she took his credit chit at the apartment.

When the check comes, she tries to grab the two tickets but he is fast and grabs his own, the plating above one eye quirking up at her. She can tell as he examines her from across the table that he is trying to determine her intentions without having to outright question her. She can see that he's not stupid and he knows something is amiss, and she silently upholds that her confidence in his capabilities to make is as a detective is well founded._Definitely going to make a good detective._

His eyes widen and he breaks his concentration when he finds that his credit chit is gone. Just as quickly, he scowls up at her innocent smile. "Stealing from an officer, Jane? I thought you said you had 'street smarts.'"

At that she loses her battle with her laughter. "Guess I'll just have to cover for today. We won't be able to make it back to the apartment if we want to make it to the concert hall for the show."

Sighing in exasperation he hands over the ticket for his meal. "This just means I'll have to get a chance to pay you back."

She shrugs, replying, "You do that," as she pays their tickets. Once done, the two head for a transport to take them to the Dilinaga Concert Hall in Tayseri Ward to catch the Salarian optics show.


	14. Chapter 14

~Garrus~

Something was definitely up with Jane today he just couldn't figure out what it was. She was excited about something, that was obvious, and at first he had thought that it was because she had taken his credit chit in an attempt to get him to let her treat him with everything they did today.

After the fantastic light and music show she treated him to, Jane had brought him into the part of Tayseri that contained all the places to eat and stopped in one of the establishments that advertised something called Ice Cream. After explaining what it was, she ordered some that claimed it tasted of chocolate, something he'd only had once or twice. As the attendant scooped it into a package, Jane had disappeared, promising to not be long, and returned with two mysterious packages she claimed were take outs for the two of them.

He appreciated all she was doing today, but he didn't expect it, the fact that she was staying at his place was because she was his friend and he saw no point in her spending the money on a place to stay when he had available room. Perhaps it was just the practical Turian in him but her verbal thanks was enough to drop the subject, but maybe what she was going through was a human thing. Whatever the case was, he would just take what she offered and enjoy his day off with who he came to think of as his best friend.

Thinking back to what she had said at his apartment and how she spoke with such confidence in his abilities and support in his decision, he couldn't believe how he could've gained such a high opinion from her. He wasn't completely blind to the rankings of the Alliance, she was going into their Special Forces and had already completed the first level of testing, and for her to look at him like he could accomplish the task set forth was a shock from what he was used to all his life. If getting into Investigations was the way to show her that her support was not taken for granted then he would succeed even if he had to face his father.

His thoughts return to the present as they arrive to his apartment, ice cream and take out containers in hand. "Why don't you find something to watch while I put this away," Jane says as she takes the ice cream from him and takes it and the food boxes to the kitchen. He nods, not really knowing what else to do now that she's disarmed him of his charge.

As he scans through the channels, coming across some documentary on some famous human musician and decides it's good enough, he hears he pulling out some plates and utensils. Before he can stand to move over to assist her she is there, shoving a plate into his hands with the biggest smile he's ever seen on her face. He looks down and nearly drops his plate in surprise.

Laying in his hands is a plate of the bluest slab of raw Xemna and still-on-the-bone Louza, both rubbed in seasons he hasn't smelled since being a fledgling and laying on a bed of ground Pourka. He has never seen anything is fresh in his whole time on the Citadel, granted he never went to the more expensive restaurants and that thought makes him all the more speechless.

He looks up to Jane to see her chewing slightly on her bottom lip. A soft, low thrum erupts from his chest at her and what's she given him and at the sound she releases her lip and smiles nervously. Trying to collect himself enough to assure her, he tries his best to speak without his voice cracking or his subvocals drowning out his words. "Thank you Jane, this is…I don't even know how to thank you."

He smile softens, "don't thank me yet, you don't even know if it's good."

"I'm sure it is," he gets out before his thrum takes over. The two sit and he can barely keep himself from devouring his plate of food.

Everything about the dish brings back memories of home and he knows he will never be able to give her anything that compares to the feeling her gift has given him, but he vows he will give his all to trying.

Their night ends with the two sharing the entire container of sweet human dessert and staying up late to watch reruns of some realty show that they didn't pay any attention to because they were too busy talking about anything and nothing at all.


	15. Chapter 15

~Jane~

That night she wakes to screaming and Garrus' hands holding her arms down and to her sides, only realizing as her vision clears that the shrieks are emanating from her own lips. The images of her nightmare rush upon her like a tidal wave as he looks down to her in concern, a soft purring the only sound from him.

She had dreamt of Akuze again, only this time it was just as bad at the first night she had slept at Garrus' apartment. The entire experience played through her head the same, only now, the dead would personally chance her, hold her down, and inflict their own pains upon her flesh. She must have also been thrashing violently if the disheveled state of the bed were any indication.

She feels his grip loosen and the purring stop when she moves to sit up and, feeling more exhausted than when she had gone to sleep - not even two hours ago, his desk clock states - she finds she needs his hand on her back for support. Already ashamed for waking him and not wanting to feel like she has to be coddled, she pulls her knees up and uses them to lean her head and weight on, but his hand remains light as an altogether sign of support. Neither speak during the seemingly endless moments as she collects her breath, slows her frantic heart, and clears her racing thoughts.

"Shit, Garrus," she finally manages, running her hand through her tangled hair. "I don't know what happened. I thought I was getting over this crap." She waves her hand to include the state of the bed and herself, sighing dejectedly.

Removing his hand from her back and nodding to the bed in a silent question, to which she nods, he moves to sit next to her on the bed. Any other times someone would sit as close to her directly after waking from an intense nightmare would leave her feeling caged in and it should be the same with him, but, if anything, she finds herself relaxing slightly. The images from her dreams are still vivid but his presence calms her enough to understand and think clearly when he starts to speak.

"You were clawing and scratching at yourself, so I figured you'd be safer punching me in the face than tearing your skin off." He looks to her and she now notices the red welts across her arms and neck, some even bleeding slightly.

She rubs some of the more tender places and sighs. "Damn it, these dreams were supposed to be getting better, not worse." The past few nights were almost completely without the nightmares of Thresher Maws, acid, and death, and she couldn't understand what would be bringing them back with such a vengeance.

He shrugs and looks off into the distance. "Maybe for you to get better it has to get worse. If humans dream anything like Turians, then that's what it is." He sighs, looks to her, and places his hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you should talk to someone about this." She jerks her head up to him to protest when he raises a hand to keep her from interrupting and continues, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want me to know, but I think you would be able to start sleeping better if you find someone to confide in."

Sighing with exhaustion, she drops her head and rubs at the headache starting to build above her brow. "I don't have anyone, and even if I did, I'm not going to just drop my problems on someone. I'm not some prissy princess who needs someone to brush my hair and tell me everything is going to be okay. I can take care of this myself."

When she raises her head she finds him with an unreadable look in his eyes. His steady gaze doesn't falter as he seems to study her and she almost says something when his Omni-Tool chimes with an incoming message. He looks down at it and reads quickly, then sighs and concedes, "That's from work, they want me to come in and help out with some operation." He looks back with that look she can't place and stands. "You know where to find me whenever you change your mind. I'm here if you need me."

He leaves her to rub Medigel on her wounds and think over the fact that he hadn't said _if_she ever felt like talking but _when_ she felt like it and though she wants to be angered by his arrogant confidence of what she would do, she can only wonder how she managed to gain his support.


	16. Chapter 16

~Jane~

Since submitting his application a week ago to get into another division of C-Sec, Garrus has been busy with his regular work hours and his evaluations and subsequent training for his entrance into Investigations.

Jane felt a bit bad that because of her support he now found himself buried in work, but she knew that he'd be happier in the long run once he found himself in a position where he would be able to accomplish all the things he joined C-Sec for in the first place. She knew that he would've gotten into the position in his own time, but, hell, if he needed that push then she was more than happy to be the pusher.

His longer hours meant that now she was often left to her own devices and had to entertain herself during the long hours he wasn't home. That is why she now finds herself in a section of Shalta Wards that contains a large amount of human centric shops. She would've never imagined the other species on the Citadel being interested in human culture, art, or food but all around the small market were many different members of each race experiencing what her people offered the universe.

Entering an antique shop that guarantees actual items from Earth to browse through, she walks amongst the aisles and makes a game of challenging herself to recognize and name the various knick knacks on the shelves. Some, she finds, are older than she expects and some are things she can't even identify. Then she sees it. On a shelf towards the back of the shop lay an acoustic guitar, made of real wood and covered in dust.

Moving towards it and picking up the instrument she inspects it and its condition. Wiping the dust away reveals that it is made of ebony wood and though it is missing some of the strings, it is in good shape and can definitely be brought back with very little work. She carries the guitar to the front of the store and finds the Elcor attending the front.

"Cordially: Greetings human. It is always a pleasure to have a visitor to my shop." He greets as she approaches. "Helpful: Is there anything I can assist you with?"

"Actually, I want to know what you're asking for this guitar." She raises the item in question, preparing for a bartering match with the shop keep. She needs to fix it up, and if she's going to be able to she needs to get a good price for it.

"Civilly: The instrument can be yours for the cost of 2000 credits." He shifts his stand, seemingly to stand taller. "Proudly: This is the only place on the Citadel to obtain such an item."

She snorts, "Yeah, and it'll stay the only place with that price. You do know that you can't possibly expect to get that amount in the condition it's in." She holds the guitar and points to the neck, "you are missing strings, which I'll have to go find a store that has something that'll work." She runs her hands over the dusting surface and shows him the residue. "Plus, I'll have to clean and buff it all off. I'll be lucky if I don't have to reseal the finish." A bit of an exaggeration but what the hell, can't deal without a little bullshitting.

"Remorsefully: I did not know it had fallen into such disrepair." He shakes his head slightly and his body sways. "Dejectedly: I will sell it for 1800 credits."

"1000 credits," she offers.

"Sternly: 1500 credits and I will not decrease the price any further." He stiffens his body and the two eye each other.

"You've got yourself a deal, sir," she smiles and pulls out her credit chit. If it had come down to it, she would've paid full price for the guitar because it wasn't in too bad of a shape. If fact, if she could find the strings she knew she could get it back into working order by tonight and if not, tomorrow.

_I wonder if Garrus has ever heard a guitar before_, she thinks as pays, thanking the Elcor shop owner, and heads out into the ward in search of somewhere for strings.

Finding strings had actually turned out to be quite easy and cheap as she found a store that sold various supplies for instruments across the various species. When the Asari matron running the store had seen Jane's guitar she had offered to buy it off of her, confirming that acoustic guitars that were for sale were hard to find on the Citadel. Politely refusing her offer, Jane did agree to let the Asari string and clean it if Jane also agreed to show her how it played.

As it turned out, Jane found that the old saying about never really forgetting was true and played an old tune she remembered from her childhood to the Asari. She couldn't remember the words, but the matron didn't seem to mind or care as she watched in awe as Jane's fingers flew over the strings and the notes fell from the black guitar.

That was hours ago and though she hated to disappoint the Asari matron, she didn't want to stay in the store all day playing and instead she wanted to find a nice place to just sit and clear her mind. She figured the best place to do just that would be Garrus' apartment because he would still be gone for quite some time more, so now she finds herself on a public transport to his home.

Once she steps off the transport with guitar in hand she begins to make her way to the building he lives in. On the way, she notices a group of school children and what she suspects are their parents in a nearby area that families tend to take their children to play.

She has seen the area she terms as a play area on her various excursions throughout the Citadel and particularly through the residential area of the various Wards. Because of where Garrus lives, the majority of the children are Turian and the play set they are on reflects that with a layout that resembles an obstacle course than the metal climbing bars she remembers from Earth.

As she watches the children play with a smile on her face she doesn't notice that she's gained the attention of one of the little Turian girls that's dragging her mother by the hand over from the transport.

"What's that?" Jane hears a small flanged voice ask. Looking down she sees a little copper Turian, a white swipe of paint down her chin and cheeks, with golden eyes wide in wonder, her mandible flickering in excitement.

Jane smiles and crouches down to the girl's height. She never liked being looked down upon as a kid so she certainly wasn't going to start doing the same to others. She holds the guitar flat on the top of her palms and holds it out to the little girl. "This is a guitar, it's a human instrument."

A low, little thrum, one Jane recognizes from Garrus as enjoyment, emanates from the little girl as she holds out a hand and hovers it over the wood of the guitar. She looks up to Jane in silent question, and at Jane's nod she lowers it to run along the smooth wood. She purrs, a sound Jane hasn't heard before but probably assumes much the same as the thrum, and she plucks a string with one of her little talons. She pulls back with a gasp at the note that vibrates off the string.

Jane chuckles at the girl's reaction, which is mirrored by the mother as she stands behind her daughter. The little Turian's mandibles flick out in a smile and she looks to Jane again. "Can you play it?"

"Terria," her mother scolds. She bows her head in apology for her daughter and Jane shakes it off, no harm done.

Directing her attention back to the little girl, known as Terria, Jane offers, "I can play for you but you'll have to let me find somewhere to sit first." She smirks, "I'm old and need a place to sit and play." To this the girl giggles.

Jane leads Terria and her mother to a nearby bench to begin playing and soon she finds a crowd of the children and parents forming to watch her play her new guitar.


	17. Chapter 17

~Garrus~

Today had been a long day and though he is tired and achy all over, Garrus can't find it in himself to complain. He is happy to be on his way into Investigations and is more than willing to do the hard work to get in.

The only negative about his situation is that he doesn't get to be home as often as when he was just patrolling for Enforcement. That means he also doesn't get to see Jane as much during her leave, but the two make sure when he has time to enjoy themselves even if by just watching vids at home.

He gets out of his cab at the hub outside when he hears a peculiar sound coming from the nearby family center where crowd has gathered. As he moves closer he begins to recognize the sound as a human instrument that he's heard from performers on the wards, but it's usual to hear one in a Turian apartment complex.

The performer has obviously attracted the group of adults and children as the some adults even bob their head and hum along with the music. It's then that the beat slows slightly and he hears a very familiar, yet very unexpected voice, cut in tenderly. "They say the devil's water it ain't so sweet." Shocked to hear Jane as the source, Garrus begins to push his way through the crowd. "You don't have to drink right now but you can dip your feet in, every once and a little while."

The instrument picks back up speed and power. She begins to sing shortly after as he finally makes it to the front of the crowd. "You sit there in your heartache, waiting on some beautiful boy to, to save you from your old ways." Jane is surrounded by a group of young Turians who watch in awe as her fingers strum over the strings and her voice envelope the group. She smiles looks down to the children as she sings with a smile on her face, even focusing on one in particular as she says one thing or another.

He doesn't notice that the song is at its end until the crowd claps and she bows her head in silent thanks. The children bound on their feet and some from their spots sitting on the ground, all thrumming in excitement and happiness and Garrus is surprised to hear some of the adults do the same.

He admits that Jane definitely has a way with people if she can get some of the older Turians in the crowd to let out a thrum or two before they clamp down on them. She may not know it, but she definitely has the charisma to get break through the standard Turian façade of control. Part of him also admits that she probably would've been able to convince him to sign up for Investigations even if he hadn't have wanted to.

She notices him then and he nods in acknowledgement. She turns to the children around her as the applause quiets and concedes, "Alright kids. Looks like I attracted the attentions of C-Sec." The children look to him, some with frowns and some with scowls, and some of the parents chuckle, the good mirth from Jane's performance still permeating the group.

"Time to call it quits," she adds, to which an audible amount of 'ahhs' and grumbles ensues from the group of youth. "Now, now, be good and run along. I've just about rubbed my fingers raw to appease your insatiable appetites." They all either giggle or laugh at her mock grimace over her fingers and the crowd begins to disperse as they and their families go their own ways to their homes.

"Well, Officer," she directs towards Garrus. "Here to take me in for disturbing the peace?" She holds her hands up with wrists crossed one over the other. "Take me quick then, while my adorning public is not around to see," she says with a smile.

Chuckling while he shakes his head he moves to help her up off the bench. "I think I'll let you off with a warning ma'am." She chuckles at that and he motions for her to lead the way back to the apartment.

It isn't until they are in the hallway opening his door that he asks the question he's been mulling over since he found her at the other end of the music that had attracted such a crowd. "Where did you learn to play? Something you've known, or something you just happened to pick up and be able to do flawlessly and immediately?"

The two enter and as he goes to sit on the couch, she places the guitar against the wall by the door and goes to the fridge and pulls out a beer for each of them. "Actually, I learned how to play as a kid." She sits and offers his beer over, to which he accepts appreciatively. "When my mom, you know, _entertained guests_ I would be left to either sit in the hallway or find something to do with my time. Usually, I would stay late at school if it was one of the days I managed to go, but if not, I would just sit outside the door with my back against the wall and wait until she finished because the building wasn't safe enough to explore.

"I remember this one man who lived in the building on the same level as my mother. I always thought he was this mean old bastard with nothing better to do than yell at me as he passed by me or kick my feet as he walked by as he went to his room.

"Then, one day, he came up the stair well carry a bag of groceries and stopping at my feet, he plopped them down and told me to 'do something productive' and help him carry it to his apartment." She takes a large gulp from her bottle, thinking over the past. "Of course," she continues, "I know now that anything could've happened, but at that age I did nothing else but listen and followed him to his apartment.

"The size was just the same as mine, but occupying part of the main room was this big, light golden piano." He tilts his head to the side at the name, not recognizing it and she elaborates with a smile, "it's a large instrument that you sit at like at a desk with keys that, when pressed, play different notes instead of like a guitar with strings." She sighs and sifts back into the couch and begins picking at the label of her drink.

Garrus doesn't speak, knowing from their time when they would message each other that she tended to stop mid story. She seemed to need the pause to think about her past and wade through the dark waters that usually came with it.

With a deep breath, her expression changes and gains confidence once again. "I couldn't pull my eyes from the pristine instrument. As he stepped into the other room I even pressed down on some of the keys to hear the crisp notes. He must have seen my interest and heard my fiddling with it, despite by best efforts, because ever since then he would put me to work whenever he saw me sitting outside in the hall.

"I was made to do everything from bringing his mail up from the mailboxes on the bottom floor, to going out and buying him milk when he ran out, to cleaning the dust that magically collected every day in his tiny apartment. I would've hated being put to work, but every time I completed a day of work, he would sit down at the piano, wave me over, and show me something new.

"At first it started with simple notes and learning scales but eventually he was teaching me songs. I couldn't believe it, I wasn't good at anything by any means - I couldn't read, I couldn't complete the simplest of math problems, and I couldn't write - but when I sat down at that piano I felt so proud that I could produce such beauty from my fingers." At that, Jane raises her free hand and looks at it with a sad smile.

"Eventually, he went to his room and brought out a golden guitar to match his piano. He would play that while I played piano. I was amazed that as time passed, I could also learned how to run my fingers over its strings and produce music as well. It was the happiest time of my life."

She finishes off her drink and props the bottle on the floor at her feet. She sits with her elbows on her knees and speaks sadly. "One day, I returned from school to the hallway filled with large cardboard boxes. He had passed away that morning in his sleep and they were cleaning out his things. My first friend I had ever had and the first person who had shown me any sort of love was dead, and I didn't even know his name."

She sighs, "I had to get his name from a letter of his the building was going to just throw away in the trash. His name was John H. Shepard. It was only as an adult that I learned what importance that name really was when I recognized a photo of a man with a golden guitar and golden piano.

"John Hannah Shepard – don't ask about the name – was a country blues singer. Journalists compared him to another great artist that was from way before my mother was even born. How such a man found himself in such a shithole apartment I'll never know, but to this day I wish I could thank him somehow for giving me the escape that piano and guitar gave me."

She looks to Garrus with a sad smile and he finds himself purring softly in comfort. He doesn't expect her to hear, but the thought it enough as he speaks, "I think he knows that you appreciated it in his own way."

She nods and moves to change the subject to their possible dinner options, to which he agrees if only to help ease the wrenching he feels at her sadness. The rest of their night falls into the more familiar as they share delivery on the couch while watching nothing in particular.


	18. Chapter 18

~Garrus~

Garrus is woken abruptly that night by the sounds of Jane screaming. Rushing into the bedroom, he finds her sitting up with eyes wide and lost, and shrieking words that his translator can't decipher as she holds her head in her small heads. Tears stream down her pale face as he rushes to her.

He knows that touching her can result in him getting hurt, but he can't stand to see her in such pain. With no other option other than he wants it to stop, he grabs her hands as they fist at her hair.

Her whole body is tense and although her shrieks have lessened to sobbing and incoherent sentences, she fights him as he pulls her fingers from her red strains. His hands completely envelope hers but he can still feel the power and strength in her arms. As he pulls, he moves to sit on the edge of the bed to place his eyes level with hers.

"Jane," he pleads, his icy blue eyes seeking out her emerald ones, and he feels a heat emanating from their clasped hands. A blue energy surrounds her hands and, because he is holding her, his and a sharp pain surges through his veins but he doesn't release her. He never would have guessed she was a biotic, but then again, they never spoke of what they actually did as soldiers.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tries again to bring Jane back. "Jane, you need to wake up. It's over, it's all over." He has no idea what she is reliving in her mind but soon her eyes begin to focus and he continues, hoping he can pull her the rest of the way out of her mind. He can't stop the comforting purr that echoes with his words and he isn't ashamed should she notice it for the worried offer of security that it is. "You're safe, Jane. I'm here." It's out before he can catch the slip, but for some reason, it feels right.

Her focus returns completely as the blue aura fades and her eyes search his, flashing over his face, searching. "Did I wake up you, again?" she asks with a weak smile that hurts Garrus more than the sight of her screaming in bed.

Relaxing a bit into his seated position he releases her hands slowly and rubs at his wrists and the residual sting in them, sighing with a nod. "You barely even got an hour this time."

She notices him rubbing and holds her hand out in a silent offer, which he accepts by holding out his own. She takes his hands and begins to rub the joints, not deterred by his ungloved talons. Usually when they are around each other, he doesn't take off his gloves out of courtesy.

He was taught as a child, like all Turians, that it was considered rude to walk around with your talons out. It was a throw back to when they were less evolved as a cultural people, but the idea still persisted. It was made worse when other races came into the picture because they often saw talons as weapons and insisted unnecessary precaution be taken to conceal them, even with close friends and family or at home.

When Jane would run her little fingers between the plates though, she didn't show any of the usual hesitation, just idle curiosity as she ran over the differences from her own hands. He knew what she was doing though and refused to accept her avoidance of the problem at hand. "Jane," he leaned his head to try and catch her eyes, "we need to talk about this. You need to talk to someone about these dreams before something bad happens."

She sighs, "I can't, Garrus. I know you want to help and I know I keep waking you up." She looks out across the room and away from him. "I can find a hotel so that you can get some more sleep. It's not right that I make your nights hell when you have such long days at C-Sec."

He shakes his head and removes his hands from hers, which brings her attention back to his face. "And have you alone and having nightmares? Not a chance. You're staying here." He looks to her with sadness, silently pleading for her to talk to him, and sees her stifle a yawn.

He isn't surprised to see the movement, she hasn't been sleeping well since she arrived on the Citadel over two weeks ago, and he internally admits that the same goes for him. He is tired from his long days of patrolling and training, and his nights of waking to Jane's screams.

He wishes he could figure out the things to say to get her to open up and let down the wall that's holding in whatever it is that haunts her in her sleep, but having deep, meaningful conversations was never his strong suit. He was better at talking with his actions and words often seemed to fail him, but in this situation he couldn't even come up with something to show her that he was there for her.

That combined with the fact that he was too exhausted to try and outlast her on her stubborn decision, he concedes with a dejected sigh. "You should try to get back to sleep. You've been running on fumes since you got leave. I'll be in the other room if you need me."

He starts to stand when her hand shoots out and grabs his own. "Wait, please," she pleads with a sadness on her eyes he'd never have imagined could exist in them. "Can you please sit here until I fall asleep?" She smiles weakly as he sits back down, hid hand still in hers. "I always seem to fall asleep easier when we are on the couch watching television."

He nods quietly because he doesn't know how to respond, his mind blank from her admission and request. She lays back and he shifts as she continues to hold his hand, pulling it down with her as she settles. He sifts so that his arms isn't bent into an uncomfortable position and it brings him into a sitting position that has him next to and able to turn his head to look down at her.

She runs her fingers over the plates of his hand and messages the soreness in his joints and flesh from her biotics. She studies him and a small smile forms on her lips. The pain is mostly gone but seeing her so seemingly peaceful, he can't move himself to remove his hand from her grasp.

"I've never seen you without gloves before," she says in a whisper a short time later. Her breathing has slowed and he can hear her heart slowing into its restful pace. "You should take them off more often. They're cool." He chuckles at that admission, not too many outside of his race would agree with her on either point.

"Maybe I should," he agrees as her eyes drift closed and her quizzical fingers slow and stop. He waits a while longer before getting up and moving back into the living room to get some sleep of his own.


	19. Chapter 19

~Jane~

Almost a week has passed since Jane awoke to Garrus staring her down and promising her a sense of safety. It has been almost a week since she did something she's never done before and it scares her.

After almost frying Garrus with biotics, which she didn't know flare when she dreams, and then all but begging him to stay with her as she fell asleep. Letting someone into the walls that hold in her dark secrets is one thing, but to actually need someone to fall asleep at night? It confused her and it must have shown because since then she was quiet and aloof around him.

She knows he has no clue why she has closed up, but she can't bring herself to tell him the truth about her reasons or to reveal that she dreams of a forest planet and giant beasts that live in the ground. She can admit to herself at least, that she fears what will become of her if those last barriers fall.

Deciding that even though she has chosen to close him off, she doesn't want to lose his friendship, so she declares to herself that the first day he has that gives him some time off, she will figure out something for the two to do to show him there are no hard feelings.

Exiting the bedroom after her morning shower she finds Garrus searching though the kitchen cabinets while two bags of delivery sit on the counter. "Well, well," she walks in smiling at the smell of fresh pancakes. How he found somewhere that delivered pancakes she has no idea, but she isn't complaining. "I wake up to find pancakes and, oh" she pulls a cup of hot coffee out of a drink carrier, "fresh, hot coffee. Somebody is chalking up the brownie points."

He lets out a sarcastic 'hah' and returns with silverware for the two of them. He digs into one and pulls out a small bag with its top folded over and hands it to her. "I had no idea your pancakes came in so many flavors." She opens the bag and finds that it contains a bar of chocolate like the one she had run out of awhile back and was forced to drink her coffees without. She looks up to him with a shocked expression, to which he shrugs. "Figured you needed more because every time you would take a drink you would do that little thing with your forehead where it scrunched up."

"I don't do anything with my forehead, you liar," she jokes as she mixes some chocolate into her drink and he steps over to the fridge to bring her some milk. Adding the milk and tasting the coffee, she hums in enjoyment. The two take their meals to the couch to eat as she asks, "so, what are your hours today?"

He thinks for a moment with a forkful of some grainy food in the air before replying. "I get out around 2100." He takes the bite into his mouth and swallows. "Why do you ask? Thinking of bringing someone to the apartment?" he smirks.

She mock glares at him and takes a bite of her pancakes once he chuckles. He had ordered her chocolate chip pancakes, which thought a bit young for her tastes, she appreciates for the gesture and it doesn't taste half bad. After washing down her bite she clarifies, happy to have fallen into their comfortable conversations. "No, smart ass, I was going to see if you wanted to go out somewhere. Maybe a club or bar or something?"

He thinks it over, then nods through his current bite of food. "Sure, but I might not be much fun. I still have to work, you know." She agrees and they eat their breakfast as they plan out their plans for the night.

~Garrus~

Work went by quickly, though Garrus is pretty sure that the cause has to do with his excitement to share the evening with Jane.

Ever since he woke her from her nightmare and she asks him to stay by her side, she has been distancing herself more and more. He has a good idea that it has to do with the fact that she asked him for comfort.

As a Turian, to ask for comfort is to show a sign of weakness and the need for it was looked down upon. Jane, though, isn't Turian, so he doesn't consider what she had done as anything wrong. Even if she were a Turian, he would've still been happy to offer her the security she requested. Though, their situation would also be much easier to manage if she were a Turian.

Her request to go out tonight was a hopeful sign that she was, with any luck, getting over her perceived sign of weakness around him. Although he didn't really think that going out to a club is what she really needed, he wasn't going to complain or say something to make her retreat back inside herself.

Walking into the club Jane had picked, a place with loud music and the name, Super Nova, he searched for her tell-tale red hair. Spotting her standing at a table halfway between the bar and the dance floor, he makes his way over to her.

She is wearing a pair of casual pants and a shirt that cuts off just a bit over the tops of her arms with a deep cut on her chest. He assumes it's a shirt to attract human males with the specific parts of her it reveals, but he quickly decides not to go down that train of thought. Trying to figure out what each species found attractive was hard enough without considering what each species looked at in a bed partner.

She smiles when he reaches the table and slides over a drink, Turian brandy by the smell and color of it. "I got you the same thing you ordered when we went to that other club. Figured I couldn't go wrong there."

He takes a sip and nods in agreement. "Not bad. Surprised you remembered." He remembers very clearly that night and wonders how she can recall anything that happened that night, let alone the specifics of what he drank.

She waves off the remark with a mock pout of her lips. "Aren't we Mister Comedian tonight? I remember enough about that night." She points to her drink, a bright purple colored liquid in a slender glass. "I only ordered one and I'm _slowly_ drinking it. I'll give it some time before thinking about another."

He laughs. _She certainly remembered that, then._ "I'm glad I won't have to carry you home again."

"I would hope not," she laughs, "that would look bad. I can see it now," she waves her open hand in front of them towards the crowd slowly, "up and coming detective witnessed carrying an obviously intoxicated young human woman to his home. More to come at 11." She laughs again and he is left to hang his head in exasperation.

She quits down and nudges his leg with her foot, "aw, don't worry big guy, I'm sure that happens to lots of guys." She breaks out laughing again.

"Just how many of those have you had, really?" he questions. The liquor must be hitting a lot harder because of her lack of sleep. "Maybe you should take it easy."

"Calm down." She dismisses his concern with an up and down waving of her hand. "I'm not drink, just a bit hysterical from lack of sleep. I can still see straight and remember my name." He accepts her explanation but resolves to keep an eye on her.

Over time, the two begin to share small stories as they work on their drinks. It starts with stories of friends they have had during their military postings or from his work and her life in the Earth gang.

Somehow, their conversation leans towards their various bed partners, though he admits it probably had something to do with Jane asking how Turians go about dressing for a club and him questioning her own outfit. It was after her explanation that he found himself telling her a story from the military about an encounter with a recon scout.

It is right as he finishes his retelling that Jane bursts with giggling which turns into laughter. He can't seem to figure out what's so funny about his story and when she sees his irritated expression her laughter only grows into guffawing. Some patrons even look over to scowl and eventually she quits enough to speak. "Reach and flexibility? With those charms it's no wonder your apartment isn't stickier."

He scowls at her, "that's gross, Jane. I never said that I said those words at any time when I was with her and you know it, Miss Cherry Stem Mishap."

She laughs at his reminder to her story and he can't help but join her with a soft thrum wavering through his own laugh. Even if they were making fun of each other's stories of conquest, as she put it, he is happy and she looks the same.

Finishing up her drink, Jane motions towards the dance floor. "Okay Mister Reach, want to have a go on the dance floor?"

He drinks the last of his drink and motions into the order kiosk for another figuring he can sleep off the second in time for work tomorrow. "Ah no, I'm not a very good dancer to begin with. Add the armor," he motions down to said armor with one hand, "and I'm an absolutely horrible dancer."

She makes some noise by blowing air past her lips and sighs exaggeratedly. "You know, I'm starting to think all these stories of some fun-loving Garrus Vakarian are just that, stories. You're just some big grump." His drink comes to the table and their two empty glasses are removed. "Well, I'm going, so when you feel all alone and left out, just know, you have only yourself to blame."

She heads out to the dance floor and places herself between a group of dancing Asari and humans. She takes a moment to listen to the beat playing and, once done, begins to move her body in tune with the music.

Garrus watches with interest as her hips and shoulders twist with the rhythm. As she gets more into it, she starts to swing her head and her hair sways back and forth. She seems to lose herself and she raises her hands to run down her pulsing body. She tosses her head and attracts the nearby Asari, who join her as they dance together.

He could've guessed she could dance from her stories of working as an entertainer on Earth, but he never would have guessed she'd be as captivating as she was now. She moves fluidly and he can tell that right now, she feels nothing else but the song in her ears and the movement of her body. He doesn't notice he is completely captivated until the song has ended, and he only guesses that because she is now making her way back to him with a smile on her face.

"Feeling bad about not taking me up on my offer?" She asks slyly and he suspects that she caught him staring.

He isn't ashamed as much as he is confused at the fact that he found her so mesmerizing. He understands that Turians can find Asari attractive, and that their bodies are much like a human woman's, but he was never a man to go outside his species.

He definitely never imagined he'd be staring down his best friend, who happened to be a human, from across a club, and was he growling when he was watching her? Thank whatever higher force that she wasn't near if he was.

Deciding that this train of thinking was best left to another time when he wasn't slightly drunk he shook his head in denial. Downing the rest of his drink to hopefully aid in his task he answers her. "Just waiting for you to get done."

She mock scowls, but then breaks out into a smile. "Well, then, let's go." She leads the way out of the club and to the transit hub that will take them home.

That night marks another nightmare.

Garrus rushes in to find Jane surrounded in a blue glow as she screams and claws against the skin of her shoulders and back. Objects from his room are thrown about and he quickly composes himself and gathers strength before moving into Jane's biotic aura to wake her.

The first thing he does is grab her wrists and retch her arms away from the tears in her shirt and flesh. The burning in his veins is ignored as adrenaline pumps through his body and she starts to kick and thrash in his grip, crying out incoherently.

He is extra careful to curl his fingers so that his talons do not rest against her skin so that her thrashing doesn't cause him to rip her wrists open. The blankets come off of her body and one of her legs fly out and manage to hit his unplated abdomen through his sleepwear.

_With that and the punch to the nose plates from the first night, she has the uncanny ability to hit at just the right weak spots_, he thinks as he buckles over. He maintains his grip on her wrists and she falls from the bed with him. She hits the ground with a loud thump, but her kicking persists so he moves to gain more control over her.

He has no other choice but to straddle her body to keep her legs from hitting anymore of his weak spots and the biotic energy pulses between the two of them, flowing like fire throughout his body.

"Jane, snap out of it." He demands, but her only response is to thrash and moan painfully. He knows his pin isn't the cause of her pain, so he doesn't get up. Instead he takes both of her wrists in one hand and leans on the other to look down into her blank eyes. "Wake up, Jane."

She cries and the biotics flare, making his teeth grind and a growl erupt from his chest and his free hand digs its claws into the floor. He can't physically sit here all night for her to snap out of it and figuring that talking to her isn't helping, he decides to do the only thing he can think of.

He sits up and with his free hand slaps Jane across the face. Almost immediately, the biotics fade and the fog in her eyes clears with realization.

She looks up to him, the two both breathing hard from the struggle, and before she can apologize he waves her off. "Don't bother, Jane. We both did things while you were asleep that neither feels particularly good about."

He releases her and stands, pulling her up once he's up. She stands with her arms crossed and looks around the trashed room as she rubs her forearms. He goes into the bathroom and brings out a package of Medi-gel for her wounds. She silently accepts the tube and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

He is too tired to clean up the room and his muscles burn as if he had just run an obstacle course because of her biotics, so he heads to the living room instead and sits on the couch. He is running through how he can make her talk and how to help stop the nightmares when he hears her walk into the living room and sit down beside him on the couch.

"I will try to find someone to talk to tomorrow," she quietly assents. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I'm all sorts of fucked up and I've been ignoring you when you have been telling me to do something about it." She leans her elbows on her knees and looks to the floor at her feet. "I guess I'm just a frightened fool."

He leans to her and places a hand of comfort on her shoulder. "I'm sure whatever it is that has got you like this is nothing to be ashamed of. I know you and what you've lived through, there is nothing that can scare you that you should be ashamed of."

She snorts a futile dismissal and he pulls her shoulders back to rest against the back of the couch. They had only gotten a little over an hour and a half of sleep tonight and just pulling her back feels like he is dealing with an entirely different person than the woman he was fighting on the floor for control.

They sit in silence with her resting against his side and his arm over her shoulders, just listening to the sounds of their slowing breathing and differently beating hearts and lost in their own thoughts. He hopes that her admission is truth and not just something she has said to appease him and the demons in her head. She really needs to do something or he fears he may wake up and not be able to stop her from killing herself or him, and he doesn't think he'd be the same if it was the former.

She has given his confidence that he was never given as a child from his father. As a child, his actions were never good enough or entirely wrong, but with her, he was treated like an individual with his own thoughts and opinions. She wasn't shaping him like a protégée like his father seemed to do, she treated him as a friend who if she didn't agree with, she still let him make his own decision. Everything she did also went against Turian upbringing for an individual, but he never really found himself much for the uptight ways of his people. He guesses that makes him a bad Turian, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

Feeling her head rest on his shoulder, he looks down to find her sleeping softly. He shifts a bit to see if she'll wake up and when she doesn't he thinks about his options. He needs to get to sleep sometimes tonight and try to get the rest of his four hours in before work but he also doesn't want to wake her to make her walk into the other room.

Seeing that his only real option lies in moving her, he shifts to position his left arm under her knees with his right still behind her shoulders. He gently lifts her weight from the couch, shocked at how light she feels in his arms considering the power she contains, and stills when she stirs a bit. Once she settles he walks her slowly to the bedroom and places her down softly on the pillows, covering her with the blanket before moving away.

As he is leaving the room, he happens to step on something. Picking it up, he originally thinks it is a datapad, but feeling it a bit in his hands he finds that it is Jane's sketchbook she had when he first met her on the Presidium. He closed the door and heads to sit on the couch, the drawing pad in hand.

He opens the book and flips through the familiar sketches that he remembers and comes across the ones she must have drawn since then. A few of the different Presidium fountains, a few of various groundskeepers, a Hanar evangelist, the Salarian music group, the Krogan statue on the Presidium, the children's entertainment park outside the apartment complex, but stops short when the images take a drastic change.

Where most of her images where black and white copies of what she saw, with accurate shadowing and light effects, these were dark and almost entirely black and entirely consisted of imagery of Thresher Maws. Page after page depicted the horrors that were the voracious beasts, a total of thirty pages contained the visual pain Jane must be going through.

Realizing that her dreams must be about an experience with the creatures, Garrus understands some of why Jane must be so ashamed. There was no way that she ever came in contact with a Thresher Maw during her childhood on Earth so she must have encountered it when she was with the Alliance.

That means she must have had a squad with her and by her stories of her fellow soldiers, any squads she had were like family to her. If a Maw were in the mix, then odds were she lost someone at least to the creatures because he had learned the way the creatures hunted and attacked what they thought of as prey. Thus, she probably felt responsible for the loss and, though he knew better, she was subconsciously punishing herself for it.

Sighing and placing the book aside, Garrus hopes against his cynicism that she will keep her word and find someone to help her wade through her internal guilt. He would gladly be the one to help her, and be given the guarantee that she was talking, but it was ultimately her decision.

Admitting that nothing more can be done tonight and that he needs to get some amount of sleep or he'll regret it at work, he lays down and tries to block out the racing thoughts about Jane.


	20. Chapter 20

~Jane~

Almost an entire month has passed since Jane arrived on the Citadel to spend her leave between training for the next step of N training. The nights have been hell to deal with, but her days exploring the Citadel and spending time with Garrus when he arrives home from C-Sec are helping to keep her spirits up.

She has been known to be able to bare through a tough situation when she puts her mind to it, and the nightmares are no different. If she looks at getting over them like a mission given to her by Alliance brass, she can distance herself and charge straight through. If only that thinking would work, she'd be able to enjoy herself more. Sighing, she looks down to the guitar she's been mindlessly plucking in her lap as she relaxes on the bed.

Garrus had already gotten clean, dressed, and left for work hours ago. He had told her that he only had a short day of patrol and that he would be home in the early afternoon and wanted to take her out to clear her head and offer a change of scenery.

She was exciting to get to go out, not that she was just sitting around all day, every day, while he was gone, but she wouldn't deny that she would enjoy the company. She just hoped that her head wasn't wrapped up in the shit with Akuze.

Trying to clear her head, Jane starts to softly play a song she remembers from her childhood friend. It's a sad and slow song that speaks of pain and regret and she softly sings the words, remembering a happier time in her life. The memories are bitter sweet, but they help to bring her out of the now and clear her head from the turmoil of her indecision.

As she's coming upon the last chord of notes, she hears the door to the apartment open and Garrus call out. He must have heard the soft notes because he knocks shortly after against the frame and stands in the open doorway in silent question.

She smiles lightly up at him, trying to make fake the mirth in hopes that it would help to feel more genuine. She motions for him to enter with her head and returns to plucking the strings aimlessly.

"You still up to going out?" He asks and she responds by shrugging gloomily. She really does want to spend the time with him and she curses herself for not putting more effort into convincing him, and herself, of that. He studies her from his position with a look of concern she can easily decipher, and only feels ashamed of. After a short moment of silence, he begins again. "I was thinking we could go grab a quick lunch and then be able to catch that movie you've been excited about."

His words jump her out of her dark thoughts and she looks up to him in surprise. "You mean that Karate Kid remake?" He shrugs with one mandible flicking out in a smile and she's astonished to feel her own face forming a smile in response. At the sight, his second mandible flicks out and a soft thrum falls from his chest.

He holds out his hand and she hands him the guitar, which he places on the desk. "I'm just going to get changed into something more comfortable than armor and then we can go." She nods, feeling a light feeling blooming in her chest to help dissipate the depression she was drowning in.

After waiting on the couch while he changes for a few moments, he enters the living room in a pair of dark blue casuals. She figures that it's an equivalent to the blue jeans and t-shirt she is wearing. She can't really consult a manual on Turian casual wear or anything, but she does admit that he looks good, or maybe it's just the design of clothes.

They eat a small lunch at a café near the theater so that they have room for the typical theater fare, of which she is definitely getting buttery popcorn and nachos drowning in cheese and jalapenos with a large soda. It is as she goes to pay for her own food that he leans back into his seat with a smirk on his face.

Finding that credit chit reads no funds she widened her eyes is shock, then glares up at him at his chuckle. "Guess you're going to have to let me pay for today, seeing as how we want to be able to make it to the movie on time."

"How the hell?" Jane stutters, she knows she has funds because she just checked before they left the apartment but now everything is telling her to the contrary.

He holds up his left arm where his Omni-Tool is glowing. "C-Sec has me practicing account locks for Investigations training. It doesn't work unless I have open access and then only for a short time." He smirks, "Good thing you had me take a look at your Tool to see if I could make it run faster."

_That smart bastard,_ she shakes her head with a glare. He did a damn good job of making it run smoother than when she had even bought it, but from now one she would definitely be more aware of him trying to pull something. "Now I know not to trust you whenever you talk of calibrating something for me." His only response is a soft laugh as he pays and they make their way to the theater.

~

"That was amazing," Jane says as they exit the theater into the seemingly too-bright ward. "I would have never pegged a Karate Kid with Turians would be so awesome."

He shakes his head confused, "I don't understand. Sparring is something a Turian learns when they are preparing for boot camp. He should've at least known the basics enough to defend himself."

Obviously not understanding that the movie was made by a human director in attempts to appeal to a Turian audience with an Earth classic, she decides not to get into the specifics and instead waits for Garrus to finish his rant.

"And the Turian general who teaches him to spar?" He continues, flabbergasted, which is quite a funny state to see him in because he's normally so collected. "No self-respecting general would find himself caring for the school as a…a _janitor_."

It's the distaste that laces through his vocals that makes Jane bust out in laughter. Calming enough to speak at his glare, she concedes to try and appease him. "It's obviously made by some idiot who doesn't know anything Turian culture or military structure," she jokes.

"You got that right," he huffs, but relaxes slightly at her mirth.

She smiles at his lightening mood. "I do have to admit, though. Those scenes at the sparring tournament were impressive. If I'd had known when you told that reach and flexibility story that sparring was anything like the movie I wouldn't have let you skip over the good parts."

He shakes his head in mock annoyance, but before he can respond a voice calls his name and he stops cold. "Dad?" He spins so fast around that Jane can feel the rush of the air shifting and turns to look. Standing in front of them is a Turian in a C-Sec uniform with silver plates and the same blue colony markings as Garrus across his stern face.

When Jane had heard the saying that Turians are immovable like stone and metal, she never really saw what they had meant when the saying was used to describe their looks. Sure, she understood that their faces weren't as emotive as a human's without the plate-less skin that showed the tiniest of muscle movements. Garrus' father however, had an expression on his face that clearly embodied the thought.

She could see the relation of the two in the long fringe and shape of their mandibles, their matching icy eyes, but his father's plates were just a bit sharper angled. As a result, when he frowns slightly at his son, it is harsher than her friend's mirroring expression.

"Garrus," he addresses his son only. "I would have thought you would be spending your day off preparing for your IWP exams tomorrow. Investigations isn't a joke."

Jane can hear Garrus take a deep breath. "I am not treating it as a joke, but I don't see the need to prepare for something I know how to do. I also see no harm in relaxing on my day off."

His father dismisses the explanation, continuing as if Garrus had just as well said nothing. "It is the job of C-Sec to always be prepared and your relation to me will not get you any special treatment, Garrus. There was never any harm in being able to accomplish a task set before you and in order to do such, oftentimes you must go above and beyond what is asked." He pauses and Jane can hear the bass growl rumbling deep from Garrus' chest.

She hopes his dad doesn't hear it as well, but knows better, and internally cringes at the tension. She knows enough about Turian subvocal cues that the noise Garrus is using is not one his dad is going to like, but the older Turian either doesn't hear it, which is unlikely, or just refuses to acknowledge it.

"I certainly wouldn't think you'd find it appropriate to parade yourself around with your new-found _friend_." At this, he finally acknowledges Jane with a sidelong glance. Garrus' body stiffens, and she can feel that he is trying to maintain his silence. Some deep set conditioning must be to blame, so she decides that so long as the conversation just vaguely touches on her, she will try to stay out of it so as not to make it worse for him.

"Have you forgotten that we were at odds with humans within your lifetime? You were just a child at the time, but you must certainly…"

"Enough," Garrus says, his growl distorting his usually smooth voice, and the only reaction from his father is an uninterested eye blink. "_Jane_ was also just a child and not involved in the Relay Incident. We treat it like the Krogan Rebellions when it was only a misunderstanding on both sides."

He steps closer to his father and Jane can see that the two are very close in height, though Garrus stands slightly above his straight backed father. "What I do with my time off the clock is mine to deal with as I please and no one's business but my own, not C-Sec's and certainly not yours." He steps back to stand next to Jane and the growl stops, "Now _Officer_, if there isn't anything else I can do for you and you aren't going to charge us with anything, you can no longer keep us here."

He turns away before his father has a chance to respond. "Come on Jane, I think we'll just order delivery from home."

Dinner is awkward between the two as they try to avoid the topic of his father or her possible eminent night terror. Once or twice, Jane tries to lighten the mood with a joke or by recounting something from the movie from earlier, but the conversation falls flat shortly after as they both tend to get trapped in their individual problems.

It isn't until halfway through his meal that he stops and yawns widely, long, blue tongue rolling out and mandibles flaring wide, to come back against his plates with a clack that Jane notices how tired he seems. In his attempts to get her to have a good night's sleep, he has been suffering. Adding that onto the fact that his days are long and exhausting, and she feels horrible and like a nuisance.

As a child she was constantly told she was a pain and a burden by her mother and her mother's clients that she came to know that she never wanted to ever make someone feel that way about her again. Yet here she was, keeping her best friend from getting the little sleep he needs and then getting him into a fight with his father because he was seen hanging out around her.

"Hey," she nudges Garrus. She has made up her mind, and will not take his protests otherwise tonight. "Let's get you to bed. I can take the couch tonight." She stands and takes the plate of food from him and runs it into the kitchen. There isn't enough to really safe so she throws it in the disposal and returns to the living room.

He is moving to lay on the couch, probably figuring that if he lays down she won't want to bother with getting him back up. "No, sir. Up," she orders, to which he smirks and remains in his spot. She glares down at him with her hands on her hips and grabs the hand of his closest to her. She pulls and grunts at the dead weight of his body, which he finds funny by his light chuckle.

"Don't go boneless on me, mister." She pulls him hard and manages to get his body halfway off the couch and sitting up enough to drape his arm over her shoulder. "You are one heavy bastard. If you break me, I will not be responsible for what the Alliance does to you."

He stands up with a smirk and walks to the bedroom, having noticed by now that she wasn't going to give up and would probably have drug him to the bed, which she guarantees she would've done. She feels her own darkness lessen a bit at his small amount of mirth as she follows him into the room to make sure he actually goes to sleep. She doesn't want him to just wait until she sleeps, then put her in bed to return to the couch like he did a week ago.

He stands by the bed and looks to her challengingly and she returns her hands to her hips and leans onto one leg with a stern look. He shrugs and moves to lay on the bed and she's a bit worried that he isn't putting up a bigger fight.

Shaking off the thought, she moves to grab her toothbrush from the bathroom so that she can brush in the kitchen and keep from waking him but as she goes to leave she catches his eyes. He waves her over to the bed and scoots over so that she can sit next to him on the bed with her back against the headboard.

"I'm sorry about my dad." Garrus brings up the topic for the first time all night since the incident with a tired sigh. "I know prejudices exist for everyone and I know my dad shares the thinking of a lot of other Turians about human ambitions, but I have a feeling that today wasn't about that."

Garrus shifts to his back and looks up at the ceiling, thinking for a moment before continuing. "I am a machine to my dad, a soldier that must learn to follow orders and not question, not a son. If there was ever a time where he was trying to treat me like a son, I don't remember it. I think I'm come to accept it." She looks down to him with a frown at his admission and he returns it with a sad mandible flicker.

"He wasn't just disproving of my decision to take my day off today to putz around, as you put it earlier, but I think he was condemning my choice of who to spend it with. It was bordering on the racist and I just have never seen that side of my father.

"As a kid, before I felt the way I do now, I would look up to my dad because of what a great detective he was. He was a hero that helped people and brought evil to justice." He pauses and the sound of their breathing echoes through the room. "I guess your opinion of people are clouded when you're a kid."

ane agrees silently with a slight nod, whether he sees it or not she doesn't know, and moves to lay down on her half of the bed. Seeing him so open and lost hurts her with a burning ache in her chest. The whole time she's has known him, he has always seemed like a strong and determined individual, sometimes to the point of being too stubborn for his own good, but to see him questioning what he believes makes her decide on something here and there.

Garrus is at his best and most comfortable when he is helping someone else, but when his own problems are laid bare, he is confused by the thought of someone carrying the weight. They share that belief that problems are best left to be solved by yourself, but if he is willing to try and open up to her then she is going to offer him the same courtesy.

He looks to her with a sidelong glance because of the silence that has passed between the two. She lays on her back, same as him, with about half a meter separating their bodies and hands flat against the pillows, and she takes a deep breath in preparation. "I have to admit something to you." She rolls her head over to look at him, "I haven't been able to see anyone about the nightmares."

He snorts, "that's pretty obvious, Jane." She smiles weakly at his strange ability to know every little thing about her. He looks to her with a turn of his head, hope in his eyes. "Do you want to talk about it now?"

She shakes her head hesitantly and takes a deep breath. Releasing it out in a long exhale as they both return to look back to the ceiling, she begins. "I don't know if you've ever heard or read anything about my service records, but the reason I'm in N-Training is all due to a disaster three years ago."

She goes about telling him of the events of the night, at first trying to depersonalize the deaths and loss. Soon, however, she finds herself rolled to her side and facing Garrus as he lies on his own side, crying as he rubs her back purring comfortingly with one hand and lets her grip the other in a vise grip.

He is quiet the entire time, letting her rage one moment, then bawl the next, and although she wants to scold herself for giving him her problems when he has just laid out his own to her, she can't find the strength to pull away from him.

After the nightmare have fallen from her lips, he wipes the fallen hair from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I never get this whiney and over-emotional. I completely dominated our conversation into my own little fucking pity party." She wipes her raw eyes, "What a bitch, right?"

He grabs her hand and pulls it from irritating her eyes further and looks to her eyes, his crystal blue spheres reflexing only care as he holds her hands between them in both of his. "You didn't do anything wrong. I told you my problems, and you told me yours. With the way you've been living lately, I'm grateful you finally let down the walls. Seeing you like that was horrible." He drops his eyes sheepishly, "I do have to admit that I had an idea that your dreams involved Thresher Maws."

"Because you saw my sketchbook." He looks up worried, but she shakes her head with a soft smile. "Nothing in there was a secret, I figured you would probably see it one day or another, but I know you would never have pushed the issue. I guess I just hoped I would be over it by then," she shrugs dismissively.

She looks away sadly, thoughts running through her head of her old friends. Not of their deaths, which has haunted her for three years, but the good memories of times they spent off duty in the mess or barracks. For some reason, those memories seem to hurt more than the nightmares. "I miss them, Garrus."

He releases one hand to pull up her chin to look into her green eyes. "Tell me about them," he says is such a way, with such genuine interest, that she can't help it when they settle back on their backs, one hand holding the other's, and the stories flow from her lips. They spend a large part of the night talking of her first family and when they finally fall asleep, she doesn't dream.


	21. Chapter 21

~Jane~

She thought telling Garrus of Akuze days ago would help the nightmares. That somehow if another soul knew of those she lost that the pain would fade to be more manageable. Now though, as she runs towards an incoming evac with the heavy thuds of Jameson's boot steps behind her, she only knows that here, in her head, she is alone.

It isn't until the distance between herself and the hovering shuttle lengthens to seem endless that she realizes that tonight, the dream is different. No matter how hard she pushes her legs, the gap doesn't shorten and the air grows more silent in anticipation for the final throw of acid from the nightmarish beast behind her.

The sounds of shouts, footsteps, and frantic panting cease, and time seems to slow and her body feel like moving through sand. The only noise that cuts through like a knife is of the rush of inhale and sharp, fluid exhale of the Maw at their six.

She feels the sensation and weight of heavy fluid splashing onto her back and it takes long enough to question the toxicity of it before her suit begins to sizzle. She knows that taking the armor plating off will stop it from reaching her skin if she's fast enough, but her limbs don't move the clasps no matter how hard she screams in her head for them to obey. Skin burning with the pain and smell she will always remember, she doesn't notice the echoing of her slow steps until a dead weight lands on her back, pressing against the weeping flesh.

"Where are you going, Shepard?" The flesh stripped face of Jameson says over her shoulder and his bony fingers wrap over the lips of her armor. "You belong here, not on that shuttle."

She shakes her head and pushes harder, but finds her slow moving legs collapsing mere meters from the shuttle entrance, pain erupting from Jameson's body rubbing against the raw and still burning flesh like sandpaper. "You don't exist, Jameson, not anymore, so, fuck off." Her words sound braver than her actual thoughts. She fears that with his weight on her back and pinning her to the ground, Jameson will hold her so that the Thresher Maw can return and finish the job it started.

Jameson laughs, a horrible phlegm filled thing, and bloody, acidic, pus flies from his lips. "Your family is here, the only people who ever cared for you and you cared for in return. What could you possibly want out there? Someone to share your pain?" He leans down so that he whispers directly in her ear and she cringes at the searing sting it brings, "Him?"

Her eyes widen at the image of Garrus flashing through her mind at his words. She has never had a dream of her memories pull people and things from outside of its events and use them to torture her. Using every bit of her last remaining strength she tries to get her hands under her chest and push herself up, clenching her teeth against the pain. He laughs again and the sound drains her, causing her to collapse back down with a cry.

"Face it, Shepard, all the people you ever gave a shit about are dead. You can't find it in you to put faith in another." At that, he grabs fistfuls of her hair and jerks her head up in time to see the Maw fling its giant head back.

Jane starts awake in the dark bedroom. She didn't wake screaming, so she takes that as a good sign. The dream was strange and a bit frightening, but nowhere near as painful as the ones before. Maybe talking it out had started her on the path to getting over it.

She stands quietly and wades to the bathroom for a glass of water and upon returning to the bedroom she finds that she was actually able to sleep almost seven hours. Surprised at that, she feels slightly strange to have gotten so much sleep, almost like she slept in late and should be expected to go outside and have missed out on the entire day.

She walks into the living room to find that Garrus must have already gone into work. The two have shared a few nights sleeping in bed together, one on each half of the bed, just talking until one of them falls asleep. Nothing ever came of anything and he never acted like he expected or wanted more and had only touched that first night, but they both appreciated the feeling of the soft bed and friendly company through the night.

A bit disappointed, she hopes that he won't be out until after midnight like he has been since his last day off. Hopefully, if he guessed right, it should mean that he'll going to be taken out of Enforcement and placed into Investigations to train on the field under a detective. If that was the case, then Jane was fine with a few days where she didn't get a chance to hang out with him before he passed out.

Grabbing a quick breakfast bar, Jane heads to get dressed with a light feeling she hasn't felt in weeks. She may very well just spend the whole day traveling the wards and filling up the remaining pages of her sketchbook with something besides the dark images of her nightmares or she could spend the day playing guitar. It didn't matter much, she thought, as she packed her things.


	22. Chapter 22

~Garrus~

Today was a good day, not that it was any different when considering his patrol, but today was the last day he would be posted to walk the Zakera Ward. It also marks the hopeful end to his long shifts because he can now focus solely on his position in Investigations. All he had to do was get to 1800 today and he would be through with the near sixteen hours days and in a position to do something for the better.

The day has been uneventful so far, only having to deal with a lost credit chit, which was left in a store's kiosk and not lifted by an Asari dancer from the club, a handful of lost tourists who have never heard of Avina, and a group of duct rats that he was able to talk out of a ventilation shaft but was pretty sure they used anyways once he turned his back. Not bad for his last day considering that he was patrolling one of the more densely populated areas of shops and entertainment.

Walking by the doorway of a shop that offers various drinks and refreshments from different planets, he stops short when he hears a feminine that he immediately recognizes. He walks in to find Jane in mid conversation with an uninterested Turian clerk.

"You see, if you offer this with chocolate and cream," she says, pointing to the cup in her hand, "you'd be able to serve it as a dessert drink and a coffee. More bang for the buck." She has the bag she bought months back from a gift shop for her sketchpad slung over one shoulder and she holds her guitar by the long, thin section as she waves the drink around haphazardly. It seems like she's had a bit too much caffeine.

"Ma'am," he replies, exasperated, "If we wanted someone to have two drinks in one, it wouldn't be very good for business."

She stops moving and squints at the clerk, then down to her drink. "I see your point." A quick pause, "you should still probably warn a girl about the amount of caffeine is this Salarian coffee." To this, the Turian groans and throws his hands up.

Figuring that Jane has probably been at it for a while by the pleading look and buzz the clerk throws him over her shoulder, Garrus steps up to the counter. "Is there a problem?" he asks with a mocking stern edge to his vocals he knows the clerk won't catch, but that Jane can recognize.

She looks to him with a smile, "of course not, Officer. I was just about to apologize for keeping this," she motions, "_dashing_ fellow for keeping him when he is _clearly_ busy," taking in the empty store. With all seriousness, she bows her head to the clerk in a very Turian apology, to which he responds to with shock. She turns to him and motions to the door. "I'm leaving now, so there won't be any problem."

He follows her out with a smirk and once they are out of view of the store he turns to Jane. "I take it that our meeting isn't coincidence?"

She finishes the sip she was taking and shakes her head. "Actually, no. You never told me where you go when you patrol and I was exploring around, looking for something to draw that can fill up the last five pages of my sketchbook."

He motions to her to start walking beside him as she continues. "I was originally on the Presidium, but then I was rudely asked to leave by some Volus politician because I was dirtying up the place or something." She waves dismissively with a look of distaste on her face. "Then I went to Tayseri Ward and asked the Turian woman from that restaurant I got your food at if I could draw her cooking. She agreed and gave me some fruit pastry thing." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small white package. "I tried some of it, since it was only right if I was to be carrying it around all day," she says with a smirk. "Now I'm here and I'm all done with the book."

"And the guitar?" he questions.

She smiles and raises the hand holding said item, "I think I look cool with it." He shakes his head at her and she laughs in response. "I thought that if I ran out of things to do I could find somewhere somewhat quiet to play. Maybe go back to that park by your apartment and entertain those kids. I did promise them after all." She smiles over to him, then her face lights up with an idea. "Hey, want company?"

He looks down to her quizzically. "What, on my patrol?"

She nods emphatically, "I can give you company and if anyone approaches or we see any C-Sec, I'll just pretend I'm asking for directions, or I can be belligerent. Whichever is easier," she says with a shrug and a smile.

"Asking for directions is definitely easier, less paperwork." He says, she laughs and he chuckles good naturedly along with her.

They walk down the ward as she finishes off her drink. It isn't until they reach the level below that they hear an alarm sounding from a distant store.

"Help," an older human male runs out pointing at a figure running away from them and down the ward. "That kid stole from me!"

Snapping into his professional, Garrus moves to take chase, but before he can move, Jane shoves her guitar and bag into his chest and he has to react quickly to grab them before they drop. A second later and Jane is across the way, a blue glow dissipating from around her, and the escaping figure on the ground with her knee against its back as he rushes up. The suspect is a scrawny Salarian and along the ground by his hands are an assortment of jewels and metal jewelry.

"Get off me," he struggles, "this is illegal. I'll have your badge C-Sec!"

She laughs as she steps up, pulling one of his arms back behind his back. "Then I guess it's a good thing I'm not C-Sec. He is," she moves over for Garrus, who proceeds to put the cuffs on his wrists. "Consider this a citizen's arrest."

Garrus hides his chuckle as the store owner runs up to them. "He came in and asked to see what I had in store, then he grabbed them and ran." He charges the Salarian and Jane steps in front of him as Garrus searches his suspect. "I'll make that slimy bastard pay!"

Jane's mouth opens in a silent 'O' at his insult and her eyebrows raise, she always tended to get a bit of entertainment from the imaginative stereotypes and derogatory but oftentimes it was at the insulter's expense. She steps side to side and back and forth to keep herself from the shop owner and his suspect, for which he is grateful.

"Sir, calm down," Garrus orders. The human looks like the words do nothing to appease his need to revenge, but Jane's presence around so many aliens much help to keep him from jumping the handcuffed man. "I'm going to need you to return to your shop and someone will be able momentarily to take a statement and help you submit a damage report."

The man nods, but bends down to grab as much of his stolen merchandise as he can before heading back to his shop. Garrus holds the suspect with one hand and with the other he puts the call into C-Sec for a pick up and assistance.

Reinforcements arrive shortly after and Garrus hands over the suspect, dreading the paperwork that he'll have on his last day. He turns to Jane, who has been completely respectful to all of the officers despite her obvious tension and distrust.

She walks over to him standing outside the shop and nods back towards the officers working inside. "I've already given my statement and they told me that I'm not going to be charged with anything. I get off with a 'shouldn't do that again, but good job' and that they don't want anything more from me." He nods in acknowledgement and she looks up to him with a smirk, "Sorry if I stole your thunder. You weren't moving so I figured I'd help you out. Wouldn't want to guy to get away now would we?"

He chuckles, "No, I guess not. Having you take out my suspect was oddly satisfying and emasculating all at once."

She laughs and swats at his arm with the back of her hand. "Don't you worry your little head over that, you'll get your chance to show how manly and strong you are once I leave back to Earth. Until then," she shrugs, "you'll just have to deal." She quiets and looks to him, "I guess you'll be going in to fill out paperwork?"

He sighs and nods in agreement, "yeah, definitely not getting out early today like I had planned."

"Well, at least you get to go out with a bang." She offers and the two walk towards a transport so she can be on her way wherever her ramblings may take her and he can go to C-Sec academy to fill out the report on his arrest. As she gets into the cab, she holds the door open to get his attention. "Maybe I can order you something to be delivered so that way it's at the apartment and warm by the time you get in?" At his nod she adds, "Send me a message of what and where you want and when you are getting out and it shall be done." She smiles and waves her hand in a mock curtsy from her sitting position and closes the door.

When he returns home that night, he finds her sitting on the couch laughing at some comedy on the vidscreen and a warm plate of Louza wrapped up on the counter. Nowhere near serves it raw like he likes, but it's still good when considering he hasn't had much besides mess fare all night. As he sits next to her to eat his food, she smiles and the two watch the show is cheerful silence.

After he is done with his food and places the container in the disposal, he returns to the couch to have her shove her sketchpad into his lap. "Have a look. I'm really happy with how today's sketches came out." She is smiling wide and practically bouncing with anticipation.

He flips to the last five pages because they were the ones she said she had worked on today and she scoots close to his side to look down with him. The first is a drawing of two Krogan standing at the railing around the Presidium Lake, looking into the water and pointing at something she must not have been able to see. It's an oddly peaceful depiction of a usually violent and crude species, and he finds it strange that it feels almost as if he is seeing the two through Jane's eyes, with her perspective.

Turning to the next page, he finds a quick sketch of a young Asari, probably a working for one of the embassies, resting on a bench with a handful of flowers. She holds them in her hands and has a look of serenity he's never seen before. In the corner of the picture is another quick sketch of the same Asari, though it shows a close up of the young woman with her nose pressed into the petals of the flowers, eyes closed in bliss.

Another drawing is also from the Presidium, though it is closer to the wards entrance and depicts a young human couple hand in hand. They stand in front of a terminal for Avina, obviously asking it all sorts of questions if the quality of the artwork is any indication of how long they stood there.

The two have the clearest signs of happiness in their bright eyes and large smiles. They lean against one another and if he looks closely, he feels a bit of sadness at the image. The way Jane has depicted the two gives the impression that it is being seen from someone who has never known the emotions their models feel and can only try to relay the same through visual cues alone. He flips the page, trying not to look up to Jane to see if her emerald eyes reveal the truth of his suspicions.

Next is the sketch she had described of the Turian woman who had made that delicious meal that reminded him of home. She is easily a woman of at least ninety, which is surprising not just for the fact that females that age usually tend to stay in the home system with family, but also that she is up and cooking vigorously in her tiny kitchen.

Jane has drawn her rolling out the dough for the pastries that she had given Jane one of. The plates on her long, thin fingers are chipped and dulled from age, but her expression is one of contentment as her brows are lifted to a relaxed position and her mandibles are flicked out into a small smile.

The drawings depict and portray such joy and beauty that saddened him to see that that same joy doesn't always carry into the life of the artist. He looks up to her, hiding his inner turmoil, and sees her smiling up at him. He looks back to the notebook and flips to the last page and stops short. The drawing is of him from earlier today and he remembers clearly what she managed to jot out, it was when he was talking to the duct rats.

He looks to her with a raised eye plate and she shrugs with a smile. "So I fibbed a bit on my time frame. I got to Zakera Ward with one page still blank and nothing jumping out at me, then I saw this and I can't help it, it was damn adorable."

He is crouched down onto one knee to lower himself to the height of the human boy before him. He has a tender look on his face as he is trying to convince the boy to avoid the ducts, knowing that it is a lost cause. The little boy's dirty hands twist in the bottom hem of his shirt and his head hangs to stare at his bare feet.

Garrus has never seen himself from the eyes of another and he feels like he's looking at someone not himself. She has drawn him as if he's some kind hearted hero who pleads at the feet of someone he is trying to save. It feels as if more emotion is present in the art than what was actually there on the ward today, but when he looks to her to see her smiling down at the scene, he can't bring himself to argue over her creative license.

They are silent for a moment before she speaks. "I want to thank you, Garrus." She holds up her hand before he can respond and continues, looking up to his eyes with an emotion he can't place. "I want to thank you for everything. From letting me stay at your apartment, to sleeping on your couch, and to sleeping in your bed, kicking you out in the process. For also being there when I was going through all the shit with my nightmares." She chuckles halfheartedly, "Hell, thanks for even holding me down and slapping me back into reality.

"Thank you for being there when I needed, and when I didn't know I needed it. For supporting me by listening to all the fucked up things in my life, for being my shoulder to cry on and not bringing it up, and even for yelling at me to get my act together and do something instead of tear myself and the bed apart." She sighs and looks down to her lap. She fiddles with the material of her shirt and he holds out his hand, palm up, in a silent offer, which she accepts with a small smile. "I don't think I could've gotten through that without you."

He smiles at the sight of their two hands, his three, long fingers intertwined with her five, tiny ones. The first night they took each other's hands, her fingers had immediately grouped off into a comfortable position for the two without thought. Her thumb lay between his thumb and forefinger, with the next two of her fingers between his forefinger and outer finger, and her last two clasps against the outside of his hand. "I'm sure you would've, Jane." He looks up and into her eyes, "you're strong."

She smiles and nods absently, which he admits is as close to an acceptance as she'll get. She never has to thank him or apologize for all the things he has done since he met her. He would have done everything over in an instant. "You're more than a friend to me, Garrus. I don't know what other word to use because even that doesn't say what you mean to me, so I guess all I can do is just hope you understand."

As weird as her words seem, he does understand because he feels the same way. In this one human has found a person that he could do anything from staying in watching bad television and eating the dessert, ice cream, to offering to carry the weight from her shoulders. He's been told that that is a sign of something deeper than friendship, but he has no personal experience and doesn't want to ruin what he has by philosophizing.

Instead, he squeezes her hand and speaks over the deep, nearly silent purr he's never heard or felt before, "I do understand," he smiles and she returns it with her own. "I feel the same way, Jane." Her eyes finally light up and the purr lowers in pitch and he thanks the fact that she must not be able to hear it because he's not sure he can explain the cause even to himself.


	23. Chapter 23

~Garrus~

Garrus wakes up before his alarm is set to go off, like he does every day, but what isn't the same as every day is the warmth radiating against his chest. As gently he can manage he looks down in shock at his situation.

He is laying on his side and Jane is facing him. They are still separated, but her arms are wrapped around one of his and he pulls his free hand from laying against her hip. They don't touch anywhere else and are fully clothed, but he can smell the scent of her, made up of her soap and natural scent, and he can't control the deep purr that seems to have not stopped since last night.

In his inactivity he has forgotten to move to turn off his alarm and it blares loudly, but the sight of her eyes squeezing tighter and her brow furrowing keeps him in place. "Mmm, morning already?" she mumbles sleepily as he rolls back a bit to turn the alarm off, and returns to his spot to see her peeking one eye open with a tired smile. "Stay here," she pulls against his arm, wiggling closer so that she can press it against her chest and closes her eyes again. "Work is overrated."

He chuckles and brushes the hair away from her face, "I don't think it'd look good if I didn't show up to my first day in Investigations."

She groans and buries her face into the pillow below her face, but releases the tight grip on his arm and he's not really too surprised to find that he already misses the pressure from the contact. "But you're so warm," her voice comes out muffled by the pillow. She huffs, then turns her head a bit so he can hear her more clearly. "You're no fun."

He chuckles and gets out of bed, covering her back up with the blankets once she settles back. He then heads into the bathroom to get ready for his day and finds himself thinking about the predicament they woke up in while he strips and steps into the shower.

Calling it a predicament isn't really accurate, at least not from his point of view and if her reaction this morning were anything to go by, she doesn't seem to see it that way either. It was strange, sure, to find himself so comfortable around Jane because usually touching between Turians was usually kept to intimate situations, and couldn't this morning be considered that, but it wasn't unwelcome.

He clearly remembers what they did last night and it wasn't anything like what all his other such mornings fell after. The two had just sat together on the couch, talked about each other, then headed to bed to sleep and nothing else. Was finding themselves in each other's arms without the influence of alcohol and no sign of regret such a bad thing?

He didn't seem to think so, and if anything, he enjoyed it and wouldn't mind it happening again. Hell, if she didn't wake up later and think it was all some huge mistake, he would be willing to see if it'd happen again. He didn't even know what, if anything, would come from today and he didn't mind seeing where things would take them if she didn't either.

If she wanted otherwise, he was also perfectly fine dropping it and letting what they already had stay just the way it was. This morning was nice and all to wake up to and the idea of a repeat was just as nice, but he respected her above all. Besides, their friendship exited before any touching ever got involved and would definitely not be effected now.

Getting out, toweling off, and moving to get dressed, his mind clear and ready for his first day, he soon was on his way out. Stopping by Jane fast asleep in bed he smiles at the fact that for what seems like the first time since she's stayed with him, her face isn't twisted in a pained grimace. He grabs his visor from the desk, glad he can finally get to be able to wear it in Investigations, and walks out or the apartment with it in hand.

He returns late that night with food in hand for the two of them. Jane had asked him if he could bring a late night cheeseburger from the place he had first taken her to and he was fine with doing it because he could go for some Xemna.

Usually he would make a joke about her constantly being hungry, but he was stopped short when she snapped out a quick threat that if he did she'd lock him out of the apartment for 'being mean to a starving biotic.'

Looking back, her being a biotic does make sense for the large amounts she could eat where he was always hearing that human women were supposed to eat light. Turian biotics were said to need to almost constantly replenish even off the field and a joke persisted that you'd never see a Cabal without at least half their storage of their suit designated for food alone. Compared to that, Jane was eating light when she needed to make up for what she lost by working out during some of her free time.

Arriving at the apartment, he found something very different with his apartment. Against the opposite wall from his front door, creating a type of divider between kitchen and living room area, is a long, but not very wide table with two chairs pulled up under one side. He tilts his head in confusion at the new addition.

She runs up to him with a smile and offers to take the food from his hands. "You like it?" She calls over her should as she takes the food to the table. "I figured that you might not always like eating out of your lap on the couch."

He joins her and sees that the surface is made of wood, worn and scarred from untold sources. She runs her hands along it soothingly, before looking up to him with her bottom lip held between her blunt teeth. "I was given it for an unbeatable price by the same person who sold me the guitar after I agreed to play for him. I thought it was a perfect size, big enough to use, but small enough to fit without clogging up your apartment." She looks down timidly. "If you don't like it, we can always return it."

He grabs her chin, happy that she doesn't flinch or react from his touch, and raises her head to meet his eyes. "I do like it," he returns his gaze to the table, running his free head along its surface and feeling the divots and pockmarks.

She smiles, he releases her chin, and he moves to sit down in one of the chairs while she goes to grab some utensils and a drink for each. She brings them, takes a seat, and the two clank their drinks together before digging in.

He has to admit that it's definitely nicer to eat his meal at table where he doesn't have to hold everything or settle with something resting on the floor and it gives a more relaxing feel to their meal.

Near the end of their meals, Jane points out that the table gives a feeling of division to his apartment between kitchen and living room. She also brings up that now, when one of them cooks a meal or is spending time in the kitchen, the other can sit and talk. "Plus," she adds with a smirk, "you're desk doesn't look so lonely and mistreated without its chair. Wouldn't want to break up such a great pair."

"Oh, so the whole time it was for my chair?" he jokes with a smirk of his own. "What a shame, I thought it was for me and my apartment as a whole."

She shakes her head to the negative, "though it does help this place look like you haven't just moved in and gives it some character, there is no helping you." He laughs with a soft thrum and she smiles. "Though, you do look good with that visor of yours."

Her comment brings attention to the fact that he still had it on as he had gotten just as used to it as when he wore one like it in the military. She raises her hand, but stop before touching, waiting in silent question. He nods in silent permission and she runs her hands along the metal and towards the back of his head.

She doesn't touch his plates or any part of his actual face, but he still feels and hears the bass rumble from deep in his chest that has been making an appearance since the night before. He's starting to get a suspicion of what it is, but refuses to go down that road of thinking, too serious for him to pester with right now.

Jane has a look of awe as her fingers return to the front and ghost in the air over his left eye around the holographic interface's perimeter without disrupting it. He realizes that when she had seen it before, when she had said she dropped it during one of her nightmares, she wouldn't have been able to see the blue hologram because it was off. She must notice his attention because her emerald eyes focus back to his and she smiles.

"That's damn impressive, Garrus," she admits and turns back to her plate, his deep purring ceases and he moves back to his own food. "Glad to see your technical skills are good for more than locking up a girl's credit account." He catches her smirk with a sidelong glance and flicks out the mandible on her side in a mirroring move, seeing that her own eyes catch it.

The two finish up their meals and when he goes to get up to dispose of the trash, she puts her hand on his should in silent order to stay and gets up to do it herself. He watches her as she moves from placing the trash into the disposal, to the recycle for the glass bottle of their drinks, and to the sink, remembering back to this morning that seems so long ago.

She still looks as carefree and happy as she had with her sleepy eyes and tousled hair and he finds that he still likes the look on her, the fact that she lets him see it.

When he had left to work today he had decided that he would let the incident set until the night where he could talk to her. All day he was able to set the thoughts of her to the back of his mind and work, it's what he was raised and taught to do and came naturally, but he never really put it out completely. Now, after thinking it over and letting it get the chance to dissipate if it really was just some split moment of comfort, he found that he still felt just as strongly about trying this closer relationship with her.

"So," he begins delicately, "want to talk about this morning?"

She moves to the living room and motions for him to follow as she sits on the couch, "Not really." He works hard to keep the unexpected hurt from showing on his face when he sits down on the couch, making sure to sit on the opposite side from her to give her space. She must see some inkling of it because she shakes her head and scoots closer, and turns so that she is sitting sideways and facing him, her knee just barely touching the side of his leg. "No, that wasn't the way of saying it. Don't take it wrong."

She looks down to their contact and picks at the hem of her pants. "I figured we'd only need to talk about it if we thought we should keep it from happening again." She bites her bottom lip and says a bit quieter, "And I'm perfectly okay with it happening again."

He chuckles from the release of the tension he hadn't known was building, but stops her with a raised hand before she can react negatively. "I'm perfectly okay with that too." She smiles and he grabs the hand from her pants and interlocks their fingers like they've done before. The deep rumble returns but he doesn't care to question it again and decides to just let it be.

She watches her free fingers as she runs them over the top of his clasped hand, running over the small ridges of his plates under his glove. He can barely feel the caress on his plates because of the material, but when the pressure of her fingers touch the skin between and around the plates of his flexed knuckles he softly purrs at the pleasant feeling.

"Where do we go from here?" She looks up from their hands, searching his eyes. "Do we just stop at holding hands and waking up close to each other?"

"Is that what you want?" He doesn't know why she's asking him, he's in the same spot as her.

She opens and closes her mouth, thinking it over. He's never thought he'd think this but, damn does he want her to say no to that question. Finally, with stern confidence, Jane looks back to his eyes unwaveringly. "No, I don't want that. I want to see if where this takes us. I want to see if this is more."

Her declaration gives him a strange feeling in his chest that flutters around with that continuous rumble. "I want that too, Jane."

"I don't know what to do in a situation like this," she admits with a sign of defeat. "Any time I've felt anything somewhat like this is was always with some floozy or one night stand."

He understands completely what she means because long term relationships for Turians, and in extension him, aren't anything like this. Maybe she, as a human, would have a better clue as to how to go on if he just offered her opening with the assurance that's he with her the whole way. "What do you _want_ to do?"

With that, Jane moves faster than he can catch and she's suddenly pressing her lips against his the plates of his mouth. He's seen this before and knows it's a kiss that species with lips often use to show affection, but he would have never imagined how soft and strong they feel against his own flesh.

He purrs a bit louder, reaching a level that he knows she hears, but before he can come out of his thoughts long enough to reciprocate her kiss, she pulls back. He knows the kiss has probably only lasted a second, but the moment seemed like endless bliss.

"Damn," Jane raises one hand, he notices that the other is still gripped in his, to her lips. "I'm sorry, I've never done that before." She runs her hand through her hair, "I don't anything about how to do this." She looks into his eyes, "Is this too fast?"

He knows what too fast is and can be sure it isn't this, but he knows she is afraid of ruining anything with him. He would like nothing more than to show her otherwise and that she would never have to worry about losing his friendship because of whatever may or may not happen, but doesn't know how to properly express that.

He wants to take things at a pace that she is comfortable with because he has discovered through his time knowing her that her comfort is his, so he decides to offer a chance for that. "It's not too fast," he pulls her hand from her hair and works at smoothing the tangles her fidgeting caused, "but we should take it at a pace that's comfortable for you. Obviously, this isn't it, so I'm going to take a stand and say that we're done for today."

He lays his palm against the side of her neck and his large hand nearly engulfs her, his thumb lies just under her eye and stretches down to where his second finger lies just above the collar of her t-shirt. Despite the drastic difference in size, she doesn't get uneasy and instead she pressed her face slightly against his palm with a pleased smile, to which he thrums softly.

She nods quietly and the two separate enough so that they can be comfortable as they watch something on the holoscreen. They sit pressed against the side of the other and their hands entwined until they can no longer manage to keep their eyes open. At that point, they move to the bedroom to climb into bed and find themselves in a mirror position of that morning.


	24. Chapter 24

~Jane~

She didn't wake when Garrus got up this morning, untangling himself and heading into the bathroom to shower, but she did feel his light press against her forehead and the vibration in her belly from the subvocal he started using yesterday.

She didn't know what the subharmonic meant and she actually couldn't hear it herself, but when she was close enough to him, she could feel the vibrations as a tickling in her abdomen. She couldn't quite keep herself from smiling at the feeling every time.

Sitting at his new table with a coffee that slowly goes cold, she thinks about her new found feelings towards him and she couldn't believe how she had rushed him last night and kissed him.

Hell, she didn't even know if he knew what that was or if he even liked it. She certainly did, which was surprising in and of itself, but if she was rushing into something, she wanted to know that he would stand up to her and tell her otherwise when it came down to it.

Never in her whole life had she met someone who she could spend all day talking to about anything from the nonexistent weather outside to past memories and the pain reliving them brought, and still be able to look at them and feel like she wanted more. Usually, it was one or the other, but never both.

The few times as a kid she had felt like she wanted to be close to a friend on a more intimate level, she had fucked up the friendship because of her flippant views of sexual relationships and their want for something more. She looked at sex as a way for release and she always thought that the idea of fuck-buddies was a perfect set up, but apparently when she had listened and shared the darkest memories and desires with someone, that made you beyond just 'a good lay' material.

Did everything that happened yesterday mean she wanted 'her cake and to eat it too' when concerning Garrus? She didn't think so because she didn't find herself lusting after him like she had with others before. She knew that there was something there that was pushing against the insides of her ribs whenever she was around him, but she had no idea what that even was.

For once, she would let things fall into place on their own and merely go along for the ride. If it felt like this was becoming too much like her past experiences, then she would call it off despite her hope not to have to. She didn't want to ruin this friendship she had with Garrus for some quick satisfaction that from her experiences never lasted past the afterglow.

Mind made up, Jane decides to discard the now cold coffee and head into the bedroom to change out of her dirty work out clothes and take a shower.

She was disappointed that she didn't have the means to work out properly like she would at Earth, but the place she found nearby that had a track to run was nice enough and no too busy early in the mornings. On the mornings she didn't have the worst of her nightmares, she would go out and run after Garrus had left for work or at times of the day when she was bored and without something to do. Today, she had forgone her cup of coffee with her quick breakfast and instead saved it for after the run, seeing as how getting her blood pumping would be a much better wake up call.

As the cool water runs down her body and helps to ease off the sticky feeling from her sweat, she hums a mindless tune to herself. With his shift being on par with the detective he was shadowing, Garrus would be home early enough to eat an actual dinner and not some late night meal that he's too hungry for to even care what it contained. He wasn't picky about his food and never complained about missing out on a good meal, but Jane knew enough of military rations to know that even if he kept quiet, he would like some good food over slop.

They could set some vid on the screen and she could look into something to be delivered, she could even run to the store and pick up some food to eat during the movie. She remembers that at one time when they watched a movie he ate these strange little fruit balls that crunched when he ate them. He seemed to enjoy them, so she would definitely pick some up if she went out for popcorn for herself.

Impressed with her ideas for a fun evening together, Jane steps out of the shower and towels herself off. Other than planning for when Garrus gets home and getting whatever she needs for the night, Jane has no idea what to do with her day.

As she finishes pulling on the last of her clothes, she figures that she'll probably just sit around the apartment and draw or play the guitar. She could always use a lazy day of doing nothing, after all.

Heading out the grocery store she come across a restaurant for fusion styled cuisine. Interested, she walks in to find at least one member of every species either standing at the counter to order or at a table eating.

Looking around at the foods on people's plates, she finds that some items look familiar but with a twist. On a platter of a table of an Asari mother and her little girl is a dish that looks a lot like a dessert type cake that she recognizes from Macendonyia's.

The dessert, she remembers, is made using different fruits and ingredients from Palaven. She had been given a slice, but it wasn't something that translated because to Jane, it was bitter and almost tasteless, but the older Turian woman had claimed that it is a very sweet delicacy. Maybe Asari tastes are different than a human's but the cake also looked quite differently than she remembers, so Jane shrugs it off and continues her observation of the store.

At the table of a group of Asari, Salarians, and even a Volus there lies two large platters in the center of what is clearly a pizza. She can't believe it, a clearly human food, with some obvious additions to match their tastes, is in pieces and nearly all of them have at least one slice or another. The Volus seems obviously unimpressed because he can't eat any of it and, to make up for it, is trying to talk over others about some work project or another.

Shaking her head in astonished wonder she moves up to the counter so she can ask one of the workers about what she's seeing, but she stops short at what has to be the most remarkable thing she's seen all day.

Sitting at a semi-large table is a collection of Turians, three adults and four children, all sharing nothing else but a pizza. She knows that there is nothing like a pizza in the Turian menu of food items, she asked Garrus once, and she knows that it's theirs because she sees one of the children take a big bite.

Even the adults seem to be enjoying themselves if their nods to each other after a bite or two are anything to go by. _Of course they'd like it,_ she thinks to herself, _who wouldn't like pizza?_

She declares silently that she has found the meal that she and Garrus will be having tonight while they watch their movie.

Making her way to the table, she makes eye contact with the only adult male and nods her head in respectful greeting. "Excuse me," she politely inquires, which draws the attention of the two females. Closer look shows that three of the children belong to the black male and female and the other two must belong to the other, a dark golden female. "I can't help but notice what you're eating. I was just wondering, does it taste good?"

The male narrows his eyes in silent scrutiny and Jane quickly wonders if she just walked into another difficult conversation with another stereotypical Turian _As if there weren't enough already_.

She must have passed because a moment later he relaxes a bit, but maintains that stiff stance that synonymous with his kind. "Though a bit strange, it does have a good taste. Although I don't think you'd enjoy it much."

She shakes her head with a small smile, "actually, sir, it would be for a friend. I've explained the food that this is based off of, but he never has had a chance to try it." She chuckles a bit, "I didn't even know a restaurant like this existed."

The golden female speaks up, her high double tones jovial. "Oh, you should have your friend try the, what were they, Turian-styled bread and cheese sticks. I never knew humans were so creative with their food."

Jane smiles with a shrug and bids farewell with a head nod, thanking them for their time. As she moves past their table, the dark male stands and stops her, leaning slightly closer and lowering his voice to keep his table from hearing him. "You know and use Turian expressions well, I'm impressed. You've shown my children that not all humans are rude and unable to learn."

Taking that as the compliment he means it to be she returns his farewell nod with her own and approaches the line for ordering. When she makes it to the front counter, she finds that they do, in fact deliver to Garrus' apartment, so she orders their specialty pizza for herself and whatever the Turian table had, along with some cheesy bread sticks.

She makes a quick run to the grocery store to pick up some more beer for herself and him, as well as the crunchy fruit for him and popcorn for herself should they decided they are still hungry after their pizzas. After that, she has a quick lunch at some fast food equivalent place that exists all over the Citadel.

When she returns home, she sees that she only has a few more hours until Garrus gets out so she figures she might as well stick around the apartment and entertain herself. Going into the bedroom, she pulls the guitar from the corner by the desk and sits down on the bed to play.

Lately, she's been practices to help the calluses on her fingers build back up. Sure, using a gun and physical training had kept her fingers nice and tough, but it just wasn't quite like the feeling of guitar string roughed fingers.

She first starts with the little song she taught herself to help loosen up her stiff fingers. Spending time replaying it over and over until her fingers feel like liquid and slide over the positions on the neck and to pluck at the strings.

Time passes without notice as she plays any and every song that her mind pulls out of her memory. Letting the words flow from her lips while the strokes of her finger make the black guitar's own voice echoes through the empty apartment.

It isn't until she hears Garrus unlocking the front door that she realizes that she's spent the whole day on his bed serenading herself. She stops and gets up with a smile to greet him. "Hey, Garrus, I hope ready to relax all night." She exits the bedroom to see him walking towards her with a raised brow plate.

"That so?" he smirks. "Something I should know?"

She snorts, "Don't be a perv." _Damn, what an ass. An entertaining ass, but one all the same._ "I thought we could stay in and watch a vid. We can even watch one of your boring Turian war vids." She moves over so he can head into the bedroom to get his armor off. "Plus, I ordered something to be delivered soon." He steps into the bathroom and she yells into the crack of the door before it closes. "It's something new and experimental!"

She doesn't stay in the room long enough to hear or see his reaction as she heads to the living room to wait for the delivery that is scheduled to arrive soon.

He ends up picking some action movie that actually turns out to be less like a documentary and more like an actual made up movie, but her enjoyment comes more from their running commentary over the, clearly, faked fighting and battle scenes.

They find that the table she bought has a hidden secret in its legs when they are trying to decide how to eat and watch the movie at the same time. Its legs unscrew on its legs so that it can be lowered. With the legs shortened, they are able to place it between the screen and couch and be reach their food with just a bit of a lean.

Her pizza is delicious and reminds her of ones back at home, missing a few toppings she remembers but just as delicious as she hoped. His pizza, which tastes good but unusual from her testing bite, gets an eye blink and a backwards head jerk in confusion from him.

She laughs at his response and helps to show him how to eat it by grabbing a slice, folding it, and taking a bite. She never would have imagined the method to eating pizza would be so strange for someone not of her species, and it definitely looked like the Turian families at the restaurant knew the hang of it, but she couldn't hold in the guffaw at his attempt.

He seems to give up halfway through his meal, throwing his hands up in exasperated defeat before he just grabs pieces between his talons and starts to eat that way. It wasn't until he threw a piece of one of the topping at her, it landing right in the middle of her cheek that her laughter came to an abrupt halt. He laughs and she glares at him, but he just leans over, picks it off, and eats it with a quick hum.

She blinks in astonishment at him as he turns back to his food. She continues to just stare at him, her mouth silently, as he finishes off his beer and gives up all pretense of eating to lean back against the cushion.

He smiles to her and places his arm over the back of the couch in a silent question and invitation. She finds herself moving without a second thought and in no time at all, she is pressed against his side, his arm behind her shoulders and her head nestled against his shoulder, their neighboring hand interlocking smoothly.

They watch the rest of the movie together as if their proximity means nothing, and she is at a loss of words for how at ease she is with this seemingly uncharted territory they're in. She can nothing but mindlessly agree to his meaningless words as she loses herself in her silent contemplation and self-discovery.

She likes the warmth that radiates from his body, hotter than any human she's ever been with, almost feverish, but she's always run cold all her life and the feeling is exhilarating, similar to the heat of her biotics but without that tingling in her limbs. She can feel that same churning in her belly from his subharmonics that feels like a soft, deep-seeded caress, strange and new but not at all unpleasant.

His body isn't hard where her head rest against his shoulder. She can feel the edge of plate under the fabric, but the angle isn't sharp and the plates feel like they are much like those on his hands, smooth with a slight bit of give under pressure.

He must be able to feel her attention slipping because he turns his head and nuzzles against the top of her head with a slight tilt to his head and a bit of a flare to his mandible, making it so that the flat surface of his mandible rubs against her scalp.

She hums at the slight scratch of the edge of plates and tries to nuzzle back, but it's awkward to do with the top of her head, so when he pulls back she looks up to him. His crystal blue eyes have a softest to them when he smiles down at her and she finds herself smiling back with the same tenderness.

A sudden thought overcomes her sense and she can't care to stop herself from shifting to be able to put her knees under her for height. Once done, she leans close to him, her hands ghosting over his face, giving him a chance to pull away. Instead, he leans towards her and places his free hand around her upper arm to pull her closer.

Before she can frame his face, he presses his forehead plate against her forehead and purrs while looking straight into her eyes. He puts slight pressure and she recognizes the pressure as what she felt from this morning. A Turian kiss. She smiles and returns the pressure, hoping that he can read her thoughts and approval of his actions this morning and now. He rubs against her and she moves her head in the opposite direction to expand the surface of contact, his purr gets louder and he pulls away a second later.

She can't believe the amount of pleasure a simple pressing of foreheads gave her, and she would never admit that this is the first time she's ever felt it when considering a person she cares for, but it's absolutely true. "Is that a Turian kiss?" she asks.

Not only is this the first time doing anything like this with a Turian and someone who is so much more different than she is, but it's the first time that a simple sign of affection has meant more than starting a night of feeding a body's needs. The thought of sharing this with new experience the one person in the universe that she looks up to and trusts is just as amazing.

Trying to help ease her own nerves, she smirks and jokes. "That's pretty tame, Garrus. Don't tell me Turians are a bunch of prudes." It helps to calm some of rushing thoughts and jitters.

He had moved to face her during their kiss and now sits with one leg pulled up and folded to lay in between them, he holds her hands in both of his. He smirks, "I think the idea of the military openly advising soldiers to ease tension together contradicts the whole prude thought." He runs one hand up her arm and back down. "We do have more than one type of kiss. In fact, I think there is one that you mind find similar to one humans have."

She swallows, _did it get suddenly hotter in here?_ "And which one might that be?" She tries to return a smirk, but her voice sounds odd and airy in her ears. _Damn, when did I turn into a teenager from the vids?_

He hums once, "you need to show me the other kiss you did first. We can't escalate things until you let me learn all the basics first."

As if commanded, she moves closer to him, leaning up on her knees to get more level with his face and stops short in his blue eyes, biting her lip. He purrs, pulling her closer with one hand on her upper arm and the other rises to hold the side of her neck and cheek. He rubs his forehead lightly against hers in a silent sign of comfort, and changes the tilt of his head so that his lip plates press against her lips. She gasps as he puts pressure against her and his plates flex into the closest approximation of a pucker.

She presses back, and her hands rise to rub and press against his chest, on either side of a raised ridge running down the center. He purrs and she feels the vibrations in her hands and against the sensitive flesh of her lips. She hums deeply in response and it spurs him on to nipping lightly against her lips, she gasps at the sensation and he pulls at her bottom lip before releasing it and returning to press against her.

Seeing as how he seems to be so confident in their situation, _and it's making her look bad, damnit _, she presses against him and tries to repeat his same action to his own plates.

Instead of nipping, she creates small sensations of suction by slowing opening her puckered lips that are pressed against his plates. It creates that same wet pop as it would with another set of lips and by his stuttered growl it feels just as good. When he tries to nip at her she, tilts her head a bit and grabs one of the points of his upper mouth plate and sucks lightly on it. He growls again, with his primary voice joining in with a small moan, and the reaction makes her release him and moan in response.

His head moves from the side of her head to tangle in her hair, one of her own moving to lay against the smooth leather of his neck, and presses against her, tilting his head to the side slightly. She can feel one quick nip before he presses his plates against her and opens his mouth slightly. His actions and deep look into her eyes seem to be a silent request to follow his lead and he hasn't led her astray the whole time she's known him so she willing assents.

Directly after their silent agreement she feels the tip of his warm tongue run along her lips. Its touch is like electricity, and she moans at the contact. Her noises seems to have the same effect on him as his do her as her mirrors her vocally and pressed his tongue against her mouth in silent question.

She responds by pulling the tip of his tongue between her lips and applying the same suction that she used on his plates and their matching moans are simultaneous. She releases his tongue, but holds it between her lips in acquiesce and he takes the opportunity gladly.

He runs his tongue past her lips, traces her teeth quickly, and caresses her own. She had known his tongue was long and slender from all the time she's lived with him, but she wasn't prepared for the sensation of its rough texture or ability to curl and wrap itself with her own wide and flat one. His taste was indescribable, sweet and musky, like a combination of taste from the smells of sun soaked leather and berries but not quite, a taste uniquely him, much like his smell.

She can't seem to stop the little moans she finds escaping her from their connection, but he can't seem to control his own so she doesn't bother with it. When he has his tongue in her mouth she closes her lips around it and repeats the suction he seems fond of and gets a combination of reactions, from the stuttering growl, a moan, a deep purr, and an intensifying of the subharmonic she can't hear, but feels deep down.

She releases the pressure at the feeling of his tongue wrapping around her own and pulling. Following his motions, she pushed her tongue out of her own mouth and starts to explore his own.

She starts with running against the edges and inner back of his lip plates, feeling the smooth warmth of something so monumentally different, but not altogether bad. At his flick on tongue against tongue, she smiles slightly at his impatience, but decides that she too doesn't want keep wasting her time and moves on to better things.

She knows that he doesn't have a row of teeth along the front of his mouth because their side canines do all of the shredding and tearing of food, so she slides her tongue carelessly deeper into his mouth.

The roof of his mouth has rough ridges, to help with griping food she distantly remembers, but doesn't hurt any more than rubbing against the roof of a human's mouth. He seems to understand her need to explore as he had, because his own tongue wraps around hers and assists her in running against his pointed teeth without harm.

For some reason, the feel of his teeth and the knowledge that he wouldn't hurt her in any way, and even puts his own tongue in the way, makes her finally aware of the way the rest of her body is reacting to his contact with a rush of heat from her head to between legs. The idea of contained danger doesn't usually give her this reaction, but she'll file that away into the 'deal with later' folder.

She tangles her tongue with his, or tries as much as she can with her stubby appendage, before pulling back and planting a soft kiss on his lip plates. With the hand at the back of her head he pulls her enough to rub against her forehead.

The two are both panting and she knows that her cheeks are flushed with blood. She is definitely going to need a cold shower and if what she knows of human reactions are anything close to Turian, the look on his face say he may need the same.

"That was…" she stammers.

"Yeah, it was," he agrees. The two smile the biggest shit eating grins at eat other and can't help but chuckle at the looks of their states.

"I've never had that reaction from a kiss before, and we didn't even grope or take clothes off." She admits. She doesn't know what has hit her concerning Garrus, but she's perfectly fine with not finding out if it keeps feeling this great.

"I haven't either," he nods in agreement. Neither one of them has lost their cheerful high. "And I don't even think it has to do with us being different species. I mean, that was a great twist and all," he looks to her, "but I think it has more to do with who we're kissing."

She smiles and opens her mouth to respond, but at that moment his Omni-Tool chimes. He looks to it and as he reads the smile fades. He sighs and looks to Jane apologetically, "The officer I'm shadowing has just been given a case. I have to go." He places his palm to the side of her neck and she mirrors it, palming his right mandible, rubbing her check against the softer hide of his thumb where it lays against her skin. He purrs and does the same to her hand.

"It's fine, Garrus. You're on your way to being a detective and then this will be commonplace." They release each other and stand, he moving to the bedroom to grab his armor and she to the shower to try and cool off and calm down. She stops one foot in the door and calls to him, "Oh, and Garrus?" He stops on his way out and look over to her. "I think I like the visor." She points to the left of her own face with a smirk, "It's a nice touch. Gives you a very techno savvy badass look." He flicks out one mandible and shakes his head before heading out.

She uses the cold shower to cool off and think over their shared kiss. Make-out session is more accurate, but it sounds a bit childish and swapping spit feels too crude. She has never had a silent conversation between someone in the middle of something so intimate, but it felt good.

Hell, it felt more than good, it felt _natural_.

Definitely a step out of her comfort zone but if he was willing to try and be there to take the lead to get her over her initial struggles, she was damn well going to give him the same in return.


	25. Chapter 25

~Garrus~

Garrus felt like he was in hell lately, with his constant need to either be in the office or on continuous call in case any new developments come about on their Missing Medical Research Equipment case. Detective Chellick was a good officer and clearly dedicated to his job, but just sitting around willing evidence to appear or process faster wasn't doing anything for Garrus' mood. To say he was anxious was a severe understatement.

Because he was only allowed to shadow the detective while he worked as this was technically his first case in Investigations, the most he could do was fill out forms and formal requests for evidence processing. He could watch Chellick if he found a person of interest for interrogating, but they hadn't had any damn suspects, so that was out.

He felt like he was fifteen and not even out of boot camp with the way C-Sec was using him. Sure, he could offer an idea or two in response to their situation and results of forensic reports, but they were either discounted as more detrimental to their case or when followed, they led nowhere. Chellick pointing out that it could've been a good idea whenever they didn't pan out didn't seem to be helping his mood much either.

Eventually, the day would get to a point where the only thing left was the wait for a certain piece of evidence to be processed, and its results sent to their desk, because they had already exhausted all ideas and theories. At that point, Chellick would send Garrus home because his position didn't give him the opportunity to follow any possible other leads on his own.

The chances to go home wouldn't be so bad if they didn't usually fall at odd hours of the day where Jane was either asleep or off exploring the Citadel. He could always wake her or call her home to see her, but the last thing he wanted to do was become a burden for her despite his reluctance to lose a chance to spend time with her.

He wasn't all that surprised to discover that he not only missed the company and companionship that being around her brought, but also the deeper, more intimate feelings he had developed and was slowing building stronger.

Looking back on their shared moment on the couch where they explored the alien mouth of the other, he was absolutely positive that it was one of the most exhilarating experiences he'd ever had. The same action with a female of his own kind was always more perfunctory and usually just serves as a warming up of what was to come, a chance to taste the other, to process their scent, but even that changed with her.

Those basic functions of intimate interaction were amazing with Jane, with her musky alien taste that had a small hint of citrus and that sweet smell that wafted from her skin to overcome the initial scent of her soaps.

The mix left his head spinning and he was barely able to control his body's reactions, let alone have the state of mind to question why his body was even reacting so positively in the first place to an entirely different species. He had a good guess from her moans and invigorating reciprocation of the kiss that she may be in the same predicament, and also what that sweet smell had been.

Every time after, when he would find her home, he would feel his mouth watering, his chest vibrating with that not-to-be-mentioned rumble and rhythmic purr of lust, and an uncontrollable pull towards her. He would've stopped himself to keep from looking like a virgin fledgling but for her equal reaction to his own presence.

She would press her little body against his own, often not even giving him a chance to sit in some cases, standing on the tips of her little toes to get height and he would lean as much as he could to close the gap so their tongues could tangle together in an electric kiss. It was definitely a good change from her initial unease and he was glad to see her more comfortable with him since his initiative to take the lead that first night.

Most instances, he found his whole time away from work was spent exploring her mouth and having her explore his in return. They often fell under the impeccable timing of Chellick before their actions could go much further and Garrus was somewhat thankful. He didn't want the sudden unfamiliarity of their bodies to put a damper on their growing affections.

Because they both knew absolutely nothing about the other's anatomy, or if anything would even work should they find it escalating, he had decided to spend his time without her looking up vids. The results of his research was informative, to put it lightly, but he knew that now if she wanted to take another step but was hesitant, he could confidently step up.

When they would kiss, he would test some of his new found knowledge with a stroke here, or a squeeze there, and he must have deduced right, if her gasps and speeding breath were any sign. He was pretty sure she was doing research of her own when her fingers would ghost timidly over some of his more sensitive places, not yet used to the amount of pressure needed but still causing a shift in his groin plates.

Now, four days after her first hesitant peck of a kiss, he is sent home by Chellick with the knowledge that they are close at hand to closing their case and not to be expecting any word until the morning.

Excited that for once since getting the assignment he may get a whole night to spend as he wishes, he send a message to Jane to gauge her plans for the evening. With her response to the negative he offers to bring her some food home so that they can share a dinner together. At her appreciative acceptance, he brings her her favorite dish, something called pasta, home and finds himself almost bounding with pent up excitement.

Chastising himself for acting like a juvenile, he casually eats his own meal and catches up with Jane. He hasn't had a chance to talk with her for almost an entire day, the only time he was able to make it home she had been deeply sleeping.

He could see a frown creasing between her brows and she mumbled syllables at some imagined being, so Garrus had sat on the bed beside her and purred soothingly into her ear. Her shoulders had slackened some at his vocal cooing, and with his soft caress to the frown, she soon fell into a more peaceful sleep.

After that, he couldn't help but to collapse on the couch and wait for the inevitable chime of an incoming call or message. Sure enough, he was gone before she even woke back up.

He is pulled out of his thoughts by Jane beginning to speak. "I had headed out to Kithoi Ward earlier today because I remember reading a flyer for a free play going on at the amphitheater." Having finished her meal, she gets up and discards of her dirty dishes, then returning back just as he finishes his own meal. "I thought I could get some cool material for some sketches, but I got all the way there and remembered that I don't have any more pages left." She shrugs with a smirk, "I guess I was too preoccupied."

He snorts and stands to remove his own mess. "I thought you had two notebooks." He looks over his should with a matching smirk. "Unless that _other_ notebook you've been talking about doesn't exist."

She laughs, "Oh it exists, alright." She stands and walks quickly to the bedroom, gone just for a moment before returning with a sketchpad with a smooth black cover. "It wasn't _that_ kind of show, you know."

He sits back down and relaxes against the back, crossing his arms loosely over his abdomen, and lifts one brow plate. "You're telling me that book is _strictly_ for more intimate drawings?" He shrugs with an outward flick of one mandible, "I never knew porn had to be treated so delicately."

She scoffs at him at pushes the book across the table to rest in front of him. "Please, porn is what you see on the extranet. This," she jabs one finger onto the cover, "is much more classy. Take a look."

Startled, he sits up and blinks at her, to which she smirks. "You're actually letting me look at it?"

"Why the hell not?" She takes a drink from her beer and looks at him with mischief in her eyes. "I've been offering since the day we met. Don't tell me you don't remember."

He grabs the book slowly and pulls it closer, straightening its position. "I remember, just didn't think it was something you were open to showing just anyone."

Jane snorts and rolls her eyes. "Garrus, I've had my tongue down your throat and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who's interested in seeing how much further we can go with this," she motions between them, "if that doesn't qualify you to seeing what's in there, nothing will." Convinced, he nods quickly and opens the cover to the first page.

On it is a human female, much younger than Jane herself, with long light hair and slightly darker skin. She is half sitting on the sill of a window, its light the only illumination and backlighting her nude form. She has a small image on the ridge of her right hip and it almost looks like some sort of body paint, but she sits too far away in perspective for him to tell exactly. If it wasn't for Garrus' recent extranet history and time with Jane, he wouldn't have been able to see that her pose is not as entirely innocent as it would originally seem.

To Turians, who have plates covering their most vulnerable places, seeing someone in nothing but their natural plating, or in a human's case, skin, isn't actually considered revealing. It wasn't uncommon for some Turians who lived alone or with a mate to simply walk around their home with nothing on because it just felt more comfortable. It was only after Turians joined the galactic community and began to consider how other races interpreted it that began to wear clothes that hid more of their bodies.

Now, though, Garrus knows that humans do not have any natural protection and that the women in particular are, in a sense, always open. The woman capitalizes on that thought by having one leg slightly propped up onto the sill, using the other leg for support by leaning back. It opens her up to view as she cups her chest with one hand and tangles the other in her hair, her lips are slightly open and her eyes are half closed in supposed lust.

He doesn't feel the reaction that he is sure is supposed to come from the image, but then again, he knows he isn't interested in Jane for her species. Still, he is able to see that Jane spent the same amount of care and time into this drawing as her others and he always found her art beautiful. Because of that, he flips to the next page.

On the next page is a human male, and once again, he is able to agree with his earlier thought from his vid watching that humans are a very ineffectively designed species. The male, like all of his kind, is just as plateless as the female, but his penis is enlarged with blood and rigid.

His skin is shaded a darker gray than the previous woman and his hair is cut in an odd fashion with the sides smooth, as if hairless, and taller in the middle, like a line from the front to the back and stopping at the crease of his neck. He can't determine the color because all of Jane's art is black, whites, and grays, but it is shaded darker that the woman's but not completely black.

The male is posed standing, with one arm hanging loosely by his side and the other bent with his hand on his hip. His head is tilted away, as if almost disinterested in his appearance or state of undress. Either he is really unconcerned or it is part of his pose because Garrus has learned that humans tend to be more timid towards the thought of being nude.

Garrus can see on the forearm of his right arm is another body painting, very similar to the woman's and at this distance from the drawer he can see it more clearly. At first it just looked like a large human 'X', but his visor showed that there was human lettering within the cross sections. Reading the translation quickly revealed that the words said 'Reds' across the top plank and '10 St' across the bottom. _Jane did say the gang she ran in was named the Tenth Street Reds, this must be a marker for members_, he thought. He wondered vaguely if she too had one and where.

The next page is of the two previous subjects, female seated in the male's lap, and both sitting up and staring straight into his eyes. Jane must have been drawing from beyond the foot of the bed as she was able to get a perfect view of the male buried deep into the female through their slightly parted legs.

He cups her chest in both hands, and his fingers are working their differently colored centers. Her head is thrown slightly back and she has one had at the back of his head and the other looks to be caressing their joining.

He looks to Jane to find her half watching him and half looking over towards the images with him. When she notices his stop in movement, she looks up. She smiles and points to the female in the picture, "She was my first. She was a fellow stripper and a few years older than I was." She looks up to him with a smile and then points to the male. "He was her boyfriend at the time, a dealer for the Reds, I think he was. The two of them showed me so many things, sometimes including me in their fun moments, but also being the first to let me draw them." She shrugs, "I guess it was them that made me want to draw these type of sketches." He nods, not really knowing what to add but showing her that she doesn't necessarily need to keep her thoughts to herself.

The next page is of another human male, different this time. This one is covered in the body paint, Garrus remembers that humans call them tattoos, from chest to feet. His hair is shaded dark and pulled back into a style very similar to Jane's ponytail.

He is sitting in a chair haphazardly, with one leg thrown over one arm rest, spreading himself open to view. He seems to be stroking himself lightly, working himself as Jane draws.

The next page has him with his back to her and overall is quite tame considering that there isn't much view of genitalia from the backside, but Garrus thinks that the interest is more in the coverage of the pictures on his flesh. Personally, Garrus doesn't see the appeal and actually feels a bit of a headache at the eyestrain.

Before he turns to the next page he looks up to her. "And him?" He admits that he kind of enjoys this look into another part of her life. Sure, she has shared her share of sex stories with him and he has done the same, but these pictures and the stories they portray seem like deeper look into Jane herself despite the subjects drawn.

"Oh, him," she tilts her head to look more clearly at his picture. "He was a good guy. Not actually part of the Reds, but a bartender at one of their joints. A bit vain in bed, but in a way that helped me to convince him to let me draw him." She looks up to Garrus, "not too many people out here on the Citadel with that many tattoos I take it?" He shakes his head to the negative and turns to the next page and on it is an unexpected change in models.

Soaking in a tub of water is a lightly shaded Asari, presumably maiden by the young curve to her cheeks and face, and from the angle, it looks like the Jane is either in the tub with her or sitting up on the edge. The image stops at just below the Asari's breasts for Garrus to be sure.

The maiden has a geometric swirl to her facial markings and she wears a small band around her neck that glitters in whatever light shines in the room. Her arms are braced against the lip of the small tongue and her lips curve in a sultry smile.

"She was a sweet girl," Jane says from beside him. "I had met her pretty much right out of boot camp and she was one of the few Asari who hadn't insisted on melding with me when we were together."

He looks to her in silent question and she shrugs before answering shyly, "I don't like the idea of someone getting into my head if it's just supposed to be a one night stand. Blame it on my commitment issues but I don't know enough about mind melding to know for sure they aren't going to go digging into my darkest corners."

"I guess that's as good a reason as any." He doesn't know how to say that he is actually grateful that she has already tried to reach out of her own kind. Even if it was with an Asari that is more similar to herself, the thought that she is not against the idea of another species helps to alleviate some of the doubt about the two of them.

The next three pages are of the same Asari in different poses, one licking some candy with a stick, one from behind as she bends over with a look over her shoulder, and one with her laying on her back with one hand between her legs and the other on her breast. Jane remarks that the girl was 'definitely used to posing for others.'

The next page is of two males humans with their mouths pressed together and hands wrapped around the other's penis. One has darkly shaded skin and the other is slightly lighter, both have cropped hair and metal tags, military dog tags like Jane's he notes, hanging around their necks.

When Jane sees the drawing she snorts a laugh. "Damn, I forgot I still had this." She scoots closer and points at the tags around their necks. "These two idiots served with me and got caught 'fraternizing' while on duty, so their punishment was a reprimand and separation. They did screw up and deserve it, but even I thought it was harsh when one got a posting on a ship and the other on a colony to help set up prefabs for a year or two. They were devastated and they knew that I was able to draw them intimately. They paid me to draw them a handful of sketches of them both so they could use them to remember." She shrugs with a dismissive tilt to her lips, "I would've just taken photos, but whatever. I guess I kept one, though looking at it, I kinda like the reminder."

The next human has Garrus do a double take because of the odd additions to her pale body. Placed at various areas of her body are what seem to be small pieces of jewelry but there are no chains holding the sparkling items in place.

The woman has long, straight black hair and sits at the edge of a bed, resting her weight on her arms outstretched behind her. She has the strange beads of jewelry on the colored centers of her breasts, that little divot in her belly, her eyebrows, nose, cheeks, chin, and even one glistens from between her bare folds.

He can't hold in his curiosity and asks, "Jane, what are all those things on her body?"

She squints at the image and thinks a second. He can't understand why she seems like she can't see it and is about to clarify when she exclaims, "Oh! You're talking about her piercings." She points to the divot of her belly. "Those little things right?" He nods silently with a tilt of his head in confusion, hoping she will clarify what a piercing is. "Humans sometimes put holes in their body and put little pieces of jewelry in them." She pulls her ear lobe and points to it. He looks closely and can vaguely see a small indent in the flesh. "I had some but I lost my only pair of little stud earrings a year or so back because you can't wear them on duty."

"Why do humans want to put holes in their bodies?" He can understand the concept behind tattoos because they seem to portray messages to others, much like his own colony markings, but he can't seem to come up with a reason for such mutilation.

"It's not as bad as you seem to be making it." Mostly it's just a personal preference on looks, and also aided by social ideals, but sometimes it's done for other reasons." She points to the woman's breasts and then down to her vagina. "These are said to be more pleasurable. She certainly said they helped her."

The next page is unexpected because it contains the image of an Asari, clearly pregnant and Garrus can't stop himself before the words escape. "Please tell me that's not because of you," he points to the woman's round belly.

Jane all out guffaws and shakes her head. With that settled, he is able to look at the woman as she stands, her hands cradling the life within her body. The image is very calming and the woman has clear love for her child and that same love in shown in the way that Jane had delicately drawn her. He almost feels the need to tell Jane that this picture shouldn't belong in here when he skips to the next page and stops short.

If he was told today that Jane would find a way to nearly stop his heart with a single picture, he wouldn't have believed them and out right laughed at them, but here he was, his brain stuttering and misfiring. "Please tell me you didn't sleep with a Krogan, Jane." He turns to her with an open plea in his eyes.

The thought of tiny Jane with a huge Krogan is making him cringe and he doesn't even the same equipment with which to sympathize. It isn't that he's disgusted, it is her decision to live how she wants and he probably hadn't even met her, but thanks to his recent vid viewings, he knew the pain that must have been involved.

She smirks at Garrus and tilts her head slightly done so that she looks to him through her lashes. "Garrus, look at me. Does it look like I slept with a Krogan? Do I not walk straight or something? The answer is no, at least on the first question because I have no idea on the second. Besides, this," she points at the picture, "is a female."

Shocked at that fact he takes a moment to process before asking, "How did you meet a Krogan female? And you convinced her to pose naked?"

The Krogan in question doesn't look any different from any one that he has seen and he wouldn't have been able to tell if it was female or not without her explanation, but he knew for certain from his experience here on the Citadel that the Krogan tend to keep their females in their home system on Tuchanka.

The Krogan is the only other species to have plates besides his own, but whereas his own plates seem to have different thickness to ease with movement and have a smooth look and feel, a Krogan's plates are rough and solid. To make of for their limited movability, their plates are sparser on their body and, from this angle in the picture, only seem to cover the tops of their heads, their humps, along their stomachs, with large gaps for maneuverability, and their thighs, everything else is not within the depiction.

The, presumably, female Krogan has, what has to be the first ever, look of calm and peace. She is looking out of a large window while she leans against the wall next to it. Jane must be looking to her from the side because she only gets a small glimpse of the Krogan's arm opposite of her position.

When she answer his questions, Jane smiles and joins him in looking at the Krogan. "There was a posting I had where we were on Illium for a couple of day's shore leave while we were transferred to another ship. We were technically still on duty so we were restricted to just the hotel we were staying at and its bar.

"It was there that I met her," she points to the image, "and the Asari from the page before. They were bondmates, but at the time I had no idea. I just saw this pregnant, Asari having a Krogan help her carry some boxes of glass bottles and I was curious. First, I hadn't seen a pregnant Asari just walking around willy nilly and second, I had never really seen a Krogan at the time. At least not one that I wasn't drunkenly trying to get into a fight with." He chuckles slightly at that thought, knowing that that was probably true. "I went up to them and introduced myself. I ended up finding out about the whole being females and bondmates."

"Usually female Krogan don't stray far from home, let alone bond with someone outside of their species," he responds, coughing as he says the next part, "the genophage makes Krogan protective of their females."

She nods in agreement. "I actually brought that up and that's when Shara, the Krogan, told me her history.

"When she was very young a rival clan attacks her own clan, wiping out the adults and kidnapping the children. Supposedly, the clan leader lived off world and was having his people trying to take females so that he could take them off world too to try and breed. It was some stupid idea that the atmosphere of Tuchanka was making the effects of the genophage more effective, so she was sent off world in hopes that when she came of age she could give him kids.

"Fast forward to her trying to have a baby, and it can out still born. Upset with the failure, the clan leader abandoned her. She was without a clan so she didn't have a clue about her people or their ways and she was afraid to just show back up on her home planet, especially now that she knew she couldn't even have kids. She had taken a job as a mercenary and that's where she met and Asari maiden and over the years they fell in love, I guess." She shrugs and turns to the next page.

On it are the two aforementioned women and they are laying in a bed together, the Krogan behind her bondmate with the Asari pulled up close to her plated chest. He can see that the Krogan's arm in wrapped below the Asari, stroking her breast, as the other reaches around and sits below the large belly, caressing her blue folds. She licks her lover's neck and the Asari has a look of absolute bliss and pleasure on her face.

"When I talked to them, I asked if they'd let me draw them together," Jane says. "At first, Shara was hesitant, but her mate, Teenala I think it was, told her how she had posed for much worse after hearing my explanation. I also promised them that if they didn't like the drawings they could destroy them if they wanted. I think they turned out pretty good, and they must have too because they actually took one of the two of them together." She smiles, "those two were actually really sweet. I've never met two people so happy before."

As he turns to what looks to be the last page, Jane says vaguely, "And here's my most unique, by far."

On the page stands a slender Drell male, his hand around himself and his dark eyes looking straight up from the page. He has dark markings that run down over his shoulders and come to a swirl right above his circle penis.

Garrus is surprised that Jane ever knew a Drell, let alone slept with one and got to draw his photo. He is ashamed to find that he is feeling a bit insecure over his position with Jane at the thought of her seemingly so at ease with those out of her species but still with those so similar in shape of body. He can't help but wonder what that means for him once she gets the chance to see what lies beneath his armor and civvies.

"Now, this guy," she starts, not knowing the internal battle going on in his head. "Was great fun to draw, what with all his shiny scales and details, but damn, was he a great disappointment. First of all," she holds up one finger, "he had no sense of humor and just plain no sense of any emotion. Second," she holds up another finger, "he was so narcissistic I was afraid he only agreed to pose because he thought he was going to get all of the drawings. Third," she raises a third finger, "he didn't tell me beforehand that he had absolutely no desire to sleep with me. He was an asexual, I think it's called, but it was more like he just didn't find pleasure in anyone but himself. And last," she holds up her fourth finger, "he had spit that left me high as a kite the rest of the night. Another thing I wasn't too happy about because I had no idea that would happen, and I certainly didn't like the feeling of falling back into a habit. Been there, done the drugs, kicked the shit, definitely didn't want to feel it again." She huffs, "to top it all off, it wasn't even that good of a kiss. It felt dry and his tongue was scratchy like sandpaper. You have a rough tongue, but hell, you at least have enough saliva to feel good."

His mandibles flicker in silent embarrassment, somehow she must have felt that he was feeling that small bit of self-consciousness but her statement didn't feel anything like a form of appeasement, just Jane saying whatever came to mind like she tended to do. He felt that she should at least know the facts of their kiss. "Usually, a Turian's mouth is dry." She looks to him with interest in her eyes. "It's an evolutionary thing, because when don't have lips to create a perfect seal and thus have these open sides," he points to the gap above his mandible where his teeth are visible, "we can't keep our saliva from evaporating in Palaven's heat. We have a bit at the back of our throats to aid in food going down when we swallow, but usually it stays that way. If we are at a point where we are really hot, almost overheating, our bodies produce saliva in hopes that when we pant, the evaporating liquid will help cool. When we are in a more intimate setting," she leans a bit closer in anticipation, some of her natural curiosity still shining in her eyes, "our mouths water for other reasons."

"And what reasons are those?" He can't help the quick hum of a flirt at her taking the bait.

"When our tongues are wet, they pick up scents easier, making us able to scent the air and tell when someone is aroused." He catches a small hint of a smile on her lips, he leans close to her and lowers his voice with a deep purr. "It also helps for opening up a female's plates." If she hasn't looked at her share of porn of his species or even checked an anatomy diagram, she won't know what he's talking about, but from her quick intake of breath she has. He can't help himself from smirking at her reaction.

She moves the next few centimeters closer to him and rubs her forehead against his. His chest vibrates in a low rumble and he reciprocates the gesture she has caught onto so quickly. He would have been perfectly fine is she hadn't caught onto the sign of affection and instead stuck with the lip kisses she was used to because any sign she used would still portray her intentions. The fact that she actually used both in equal amounts just made him feel more connected to her, so he always tries his best to mimic the movements of her lips.

It was as he was tilting his head to do just that that she pulled back with an excited look on her features. "Can I draw you?"

"Me?" Garrus is thrown off by the request because he didn't find himself particularly vain enough to pose for her. He did have his times where he made sure to check the width of his waist, the shine of his fringe, the resonance of his voice, the crispness of his fringe, and other aspects of his body, but that was mostly in intentions of impressing a woman. Any of his work at self-improvement was to gain the attentions of others and it was work because he was the last one to think that it was good enough, he even had bad problems because he tried to maintain his waist size. To have her ask to draw him was almost funny, but he had to make sure she was serious before he started laughing. "Don't you usually want to draw beautiful things in that book?"

She opens her mouth in shock, before slamming it shut and glaring at him. "Garrus Vakarian. I don't have to be a Turian, Krogan, Asari, Volus, Hanar, or whatever to know that each species is beautiful, whether it just be from an artistic stand point or a more personal stand point." She stands and pulls forcefully on his clothes to get him up too. "I have seen some vids of Turians and I have to tell you that I want this," she places her hands against his chest on either side of his keel bone. "I want to see you. If you decide you don't want to be drawn then that's okay. Not everyone I've known has had the confidence or want to be drawn." She smiles up to him and he looks into her beautiful green eyes. "I just want to be able to see you, to touch you. We can both take turns. What do you say, Garrus?"


	26. Chapter 26

~Jane~

She stares into the light blue eyes she has come to trust and care so deeply for, willing him to just answer. Even if to only deny her, it's still a response and she wouldn't be feeling so vulnerable.

With a low purr and a tingling into her belly, he leans down and rub his forehead against hers, to which she presses back with all of her sense of relief. He tilts and nips against her lips, slipping his hands down her arms and wrapping around her wrists and hands, and pulling them up to his clothing. "We'll take it slow."

She knows that this is more than simply 'show me yours and I'll show mine' from the tension between them. Despite Garrus' outward cockiness, he was still a person with doubts and fears just as she was. She was pretty sure that if this had just meant a quick release or an appeasement of curiosity, he wouldn't care much of how she thought of him.

It was her same thoughts that made her so hesitant for him to take her up on the taking turns and forcing her to go first. What if he would remove her clothes and find that he doesn't enjoy the softness of her skin? The uniform color and texture? The seemingly strange collections of fat beneath the skin? Or the appearance and feel of hair in her most private places?

He must sense her hesitance from her still fingers and lifts her chin to look into his soulful eyes. "We don't have to do it together." His words give her a shock as she realizes that her hesitance must seem directed at him. "Would you be more comfortable if I let you draw me instead?"

He only confirms her fears and she quickly grabbed his head between both hands and lifts up to crash her lips to his plates. How could he think that she was uncomfortable around him? After all he has done and been for her, he's the last one who could make her uncomfortable. She releases his lip plates, but pressed against him so their blazing eyes are only millimeters apart. "You're my best damn friend in this galaxy, Garrus. You don't make me uncomfortable at all."

He wraps his large hand around one wrist and the other rests against the base of her neck and over her shoulder. "I just heard your heart speeding up…"

She has told him her opinion of the situation, but she needs to make sure that he is not just going along and following her lead, she needs to make sure of his own comfort. "Does this make _you_ uncomfortable? We don't have to do anything if it does."

He chuckles and nuzzles against her nose with his nose plates. "You can never make me feel uncomfortable, nervous maybe, but never uncomfortable."

She smiles and releases his face so that she can drag her hands down his chest, coming to a rest as the pass over the rise of his cowl. She feels the deep vibration through her fingers tips run down her arms and settle in her chest and belly, like a warm vibration. "So, how about you show me where to start?" She smirks up to him with one brow raised in light hearted mischief.

His mandible flicks out in a smirk, accompanied by that quick little hum, and grabs her fingers to lead them to latches of his clothes that run along his side. As she works her fingers into the catches, trying to figure out the way they open, _is it pull or push like a button?_, he reaches to the back of his neck. With a small zip, the collar around his neck loosens and falls open.

She huffs at her inability to open his damn shirt, when he returns his hands to her, stroking her hair with one and the other caressing her hip. "Garrus, you're going to have to give me more than just placing my hands on your clothes."

He chuckles and reaches down to the source of her ire and hooks his talons beneath a little lip towards the back of the little clips. With a sharp, strong snap, it pulls open, and she blinks at the remaining two on that side. "How the hell did you do that?"

She looks up to his face to see the smug look of satisfaction and although part of her wants to clock him for being so damn at ease, another is more than happy to see the bastard more like himself to actually do anything. He wraps his warm fingers around hers and navigates her to the catches, bending her fingers under the edge and pulling.

As it comes undone, she can't believe that her breath is quickening and her body heating at the simple act of opening the catches of his clothing. As he does the same to the last closure on that said, she steps closer and he leans his head against the side of her own. She moves to the other side with more confidence and as she pulls each open his own breath begins to come heavier and a bit faster against her ear.

When the last latch opens, he steps back with one last nip against her cheek. His shirt is hanging loosely on his torso and as he grabs the hem and pulls it over his head, she can't help her open mouthed look of awe that he misses because he breaks eye contact for the second to throw his shirt away.

He looks back with silent question in his eyes and she can see the insecurity shining through his attempt at a light hearted mandible flick. She smiles in encouragement and takes a step closer, her hands coming to a stop to hover over him. "Can I touch you?" she asks up to him, hoping that he can see her excitement and open admiration.

He huffs out a bitter sounding laugh. "I think we're a little past asking for permission, but go ahead," he nods and motions to her hovering hands. When her palms touch his plates, he releases a rush of breath.

His plates are warm, just on this side of too hot, and though they look hard, they have a give similar to the hard soles of combat boots, and are smooth like polished stone. They are the same silvery color as his facial plates and although their edges look like they should be sharp angles, they are smooth.

She takes a slight step back so that she can run her hands over more of his torso and get a better look at him overall. His cowl, the most prominent aspect of his body feels more firm as she runs her fingers along divots that make it seem as though it was once made of individual plates that have grown together to interlock. Taller in the back, it curves over the base of his shoulders and down into the center of his chest, where another prominent aspect of his anatomy rests.

Offhandedly remembering its name is a keel bone, she runs her fingers down the prominent center edge down to where the plates become thinner and run into the tan flesh of his leathery hide. It is when she touches this hide that his stomach twitches under her finger tips and a soft growl escapes.

"That feel good, huh?" she asks with a smile, knowing full well the answer. "I take it your plates don't have any feeling?"

"I can't only feel the cooler temperature and pressure of your fingers if you press into them, not the actual feeling of your skin." He responds. His mandibles flicker in uncertainty for a moment. "So, uh, like what you see, Jane?"

She smiles warmly, pouring all her care into her expression. "Garrus, you're gorgeous."

He snorts dismissively. She definitely doesn't like the fact that he may be thinking that she's just catering to his ego, he doesn't need someone to tell him he looks good, he needs her to tell him the truth and she wishes she was better with words so she could do that.

"Hey," she cups her fingers around each mandible, tugging lightly to get his attention and staring deep into his eyes. "I am not saying things just to make you feel good about yourself. I am not bullshitting you, and if you can't believe me, then that's your problem. Is that how you want tonight to go?"

She knows it's harsh, but damn it, she wishes he could read minds because he is handsome. Not just because he's Garrus and he best friend who she cares for, but because she can see the appeal in the statuesque form. His plates give the look of living armor, moving with each flex and breath, and though he has all the elements of a predatory species, she was never one to look at dangerous thing and not see the majestic beauty of it.

He searches her eyes silently and nods in acceptance as his hands grab hold of her own hips. She smiles softly in silent apology and stands up on her toes to plant a kiss against his lip plates. She wants his tongue in her mouth, his pants, purrs, and growls echoing in her own throat, but he has already said that he doesn't know how long this night will last, so she ends the kiss before that and runs her hands down his torso. She wants to get the chance to see him completely before his work calls him away, even if it seems a bit selfish.

She stops herself from moving directly to his pants and instead takes one arm into her hands to inspect it. She has seen his hands before, but still takes a moment to run over his black tipped talons and across the plates that touch when he extends his fingers, but that reveal the soft hide between when he makes a fist. The plating down his fingers continue over the tendons in his hand, thinning into his hide around his wrist for movement. She even passes over the soft underside of his palm and gets the same reaction from his fingers as always, a small spasm and curl.

The soft underside of his forearm is a combination of thin plate and hide, a tannish silver that still has that smooth texture of plate, but a give closer to that of his unprotected hide. The top of his forearm has plates like those along his body. At his elbow are plates layered so that they create spine like protrusions, probably for uses similar to teeth and claws at one time. His upper arm is covered in normal plating, but his should has a thinner, more malleable plating much like the kind right above his waist, to help in him maintaining full movement.

She raises his hand to her lips and gives the knuckles of his hand a chaste kiss. She knows that this admiring of his body is probably coming off a little stronger than wanting a good bed partner and more into the serious relationship territory, but he needs to know that even though different, she delights in his alien form. He purrs softly at the contact of her lips and the sound pulls a small smile at the corner of her mouth.

As she releases his hand, he tries to move to pull her into a kiss, but she pushes against him and runs her hands to the tops of his pants. If he gets what he wants, then they'll spend all night kissing and she only has a few days left with him and doesn't want to feel like they are wasted. She tugs at the edge of his pants, releasing them and pulling, so they create a little tug on his hips and he chuckles.

"Someone's in a hurry," he smirks but joins her hands with his own. "We need to remove my boots first though."

Huffing in impatience, she scoots back enough to let him take the chair behind him and sit to start working on his boots. "Fine, fine. We'll do this the right way if it's so important to you." She can't help but smirk when he raises his eyes from his boots with a raised eye ridge.

As he unlatches some buckles on his boots, she squats down to sit and help him, but also with hopes that she can get a chance to give his two-toed feet the same attention as his hands and arms. Seeming to understand her intentions, he lets her help to pull off the heavy shoe from his feet and when she takes one into her lap he doesn't protest.

The plating layout of his feet are much like his hands, with interlocking plates along his toes and up his tendons to his ankle. Instead of three long digits, he has two very large toes each ending in massive claws with that black tip like his fringe and talons. The pads of his toes and ball of his foot are calloused, probably from his shoes, and when she moves to the part of his foot that evolved differently than her own he growls softly.

She looks up, curious. "Does this hurt?" She wouldn't think it would, but then again, she has no real experience with differently shaped feet.

He shakes his head with a small smile, "Not what you're doing. I've been needing to get new boots because those always make my feet hurt right after taking them off."

She smirks and rubs gently on the spot right in the center of his foot past the bend of his toes that had caused his pain. They are still for a few moments, his soft purr the only noise in the apartment, before she moves to stand up. "Maybe one night when we aren't rushing against your superior's sense of timing," he offers his hand to help her get up from the ground, "I can give you a human foot message."

"That…actually sounds like it'd feel good." He joins her in standing, idly holding her hands in his. "Turians don't normally have moments of just touching." He pauses, thinking over something, then quickly nods with a smile. "Yeah, I'd definitely like to take you up on your offer one day."

She smirks and gives him a quick peck on his right cheek plate, before pulling back and placing her hands softly on his clothed hips. "Ready to show me the money maker, Garrus?"

He snorts, "I think you're at a severe advantage here." She smiles and tugs at the front of his trousers, to with he chuckles lightly. Sure, it's strange to be fully clothed, but this is her time to admire him. Now that she's seem most of him and liked it, she hopes she can convince him into letting her put him in her sketches. "Fine, fine. Take advantage."

He leads her hands like he did on his shirt to the clasps along the sides of his jutting hips. She doesn't really put much effort in following his movements as her eyes are caught on the overall difference of his proportions.

Before, when she was running her hands on him, she hadn't paid any attention to the fact that his silhouette was so different from her own, at least not past the cowl anyways. Now she can see that besides his broad chest and shoulders, his waist tapers to maybe even the same width as her own, and then pulls back out slightly to the plates along his hips. The only thing that gives his lower body width even close to his chest and shoulders are the, supposed, plates at tops of his outer thigh. They don't jut out to match his chest, but his does tend to give his body a bit of an hourglass silhouette.

He looks to her once the closures along his hips are open, waiting for her to make a move and she takes him up on his offer, moving towards him to run her fingers along the, now loose, edges of his pants and against the plate and skin beneath.

He growls a stuttering growl that reminds her of and old engine idling and grabs his clothes to help her remove them. She laughs a bit at his impatience, but stops herself from caresses his now bare thighs as she watches him stretch the material over and off his spurs.

With the pants now off and thrown somewhere in the direction of the couch, Jane look at the last bit of Garrus' body. His legs are plated in a very similar fashion to his arms, with hard plates at places where movement is not needed and either nonexistent or very thin where the joints bend and flex. His spur turns out to be like one long spine, much like his fringe, and Jane smiles when she notices it to it tipped in black, a small, subtle detail that she has come to find unique to his plates. His outer thighs do, in fact, have a plate that extends up and out at the very top of the limbs' connection to his body, leaving a nice little divot right on top of his hips that her hands can rest easily on.

It's when her eyes reach the center of his legs that she finds something she isn't ready for. He is smooth and seemingly genderless in terms of genitalia. She knows that every porn video she's watched has had a male with a penis, a unique and not at all human penis but one just the same. Although she doesn't want to make this more awkward than it has to be for him, she has to get to the bottom of what's what.

"Uh, Garrus," she looks up to him, biting her lip on how to put her question._Fuck it, the guy knows I don't beat around the bush._ "Where's your junk?"

He laughs and she feels much lighter because he doesn't seem to be taking it the wrong way. "I thought you watched Turian porn." The way he says it so nonchalantly is even more appealing than she would've thought.

"I did," she swats lightly against his chest, "and I figured that it makes sense that it's tucked away since your planet is radioactive and all, but you know how porn is. I didn't want to assume that the things those males were wielding around were what's the norm or some embellishment for entertainment purposes."

Her response only makes him laugh harder, "what kind of porn are you watching?" _He probably, really doesn't want to know,_ she thinks to herself. "It is _tucked away_, as you so delicately put it, and are plates only really open when we're in the mood."

Feeling more at ease that she hasn't been completely mislead by vids, she smirks up at him and runs her hands up the smooth hide of his waist, receiving a growl in return. "And how do we go about putting you in the mood?"

"By getting you out of your own clothes for starters," he says with a heavy breath.

She has seen enough vids to know the waist was a hot spot for Turians, but didn't really think the mere stroking would've gained the shiver of skin and panted breathing he was responding with. She had hoped she wouldn't need talons to give him pleasure and would be find resorting to using pressure to help simulate the effect, but to find his skin was so sensitive was beyond words and she found her own body heating up and breath coming out faster.

She leans up, still messaging and kneading his waist, and lets him claim her mouth with his own, his hands cupping her face. As his tongue enters her mouth and wraps around hers, she hears a double chime from his Omni-Tool. She pauses, but he only pulls his tongue out while remaining pressed to her and speaks. "Ignore it, it's only a message ping from Chellick." He immediately replaces his tongue with a moaned growl and tightening in her hair.

The Omni-Tool rapidly rings it's double chime again, and a third time not a second later, and doesn't show any sign of stopping no matter how much he seems to be willing it away with his vigorous movements of mouth and tongue. Reluctantly, Jane pulls again and stops her movements against his unplated waist. "Garrus, you should probably see what that is." She gives him an apologetic smile, trying to tell him with her eyes that she hadn't wanted it to end either. "You wouldn't want to piss off the guy who may put in a good word for you."

Groaning, he releases her head and moves to the living room while pulling open his Omni-Tool. As he is walking away, she can see that the plates over his groin are separated and the softer flesh beneath is just visible._Well, at least there's not a question of if he was enjoying himself._

She snorts in amusement to herself as he settles against the back of the couch to read his message. His statement about it being a long mail goes unnoticed as Jane gets a great idea and reaches for her notebook on the table.

He takes quite some time to read whatever it was that was sent, and during that time she is able to sketch out his relaxed, but naked, form unawares. She doesn't think he would mind much if she gave in to her curiosity and need to, in a sense, immortalize him and their moment together.

Sighing in defeat as she puts the last touches on his portrait, he stands straight and makes his way back to her, but stopping to pick up his pants that were thrown. "I really am starting to hate that guy…" he says, then looking up to her with his own apologetic look, "I'm sorry, Jane, but Chellick says he may have the final piece of the puzzle and wants me in when he brings in our suspect."

Understanding completely the importance of the job, she stands and grabs both of his forearms, smiling. "I understand, Garrus. This is your first case, you have to make a good impression with everyone that you can get the job done even if that means coming in after hours." She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses him lightly against his lip plates before rubbing her forehead against his. She can't help but chuckle at the intense tingle in her body from his subharmonic rumbling.

She then releases him to dress as she searches for his thrown shirt. When she finds it on the counter in the kitchen the two share a laugh before he pulls it over his head. He rubs his forehead against hers and nips her cheek in a quick goodbye with her promise to pick back up where they left off when he gets home.


	27. Chapter 27

~Note from squigglysquid: This is my first ever written smut, so go easy...~

~Jane~

Garrus hadn't returned to take Jane up on her promise before she found her eyes drifting closed despite her every demand on the contrary. She wills an apology to Garrus for not managing to stay awake and heads into the bathroom to brush her teeth and change before crawling into bed with hopes that he will be home soon.

She doesn't know how much time passes before she feels the shift of the bed and the quickly becoming familiar heat pressing against her back. She looks over her shoulder to see a dark Garrus figure flick out a mandible in silent apology for waking her but smiles in dismissal, knowing his eyesight in the dark is better than hers and he'd see it easily. "What time is it?"

"Late," he admits as she rolls to face him. He presses the side of his face across hers, like a slow nuzzle with more weight that a light caress, "but the good news is that the case is closed. For now, I won't have any more long days as we go through the final paperwork." She knows not to ask what his case was about or who it involved due to C-Sec relegations against it, but she doesn't need to know the specifics to be happy for him.

Remembering her promise she had made him, she runs her hands against the fabric of his shirt. "Do you want to sleep?" She doesn't want to push him either way, she'd love to continue where they left off, but if he's tired then they'll always have tomorrow.

He snorts, "Did you think I forgot that you promised me something?" She can't see his expression, but she's pretty sure he has that insufferable smirk on his plated face.

_Little shit_, she thinks with a smirk. "I would never dare imagine of pulling something like that off on you." He chuckles and shifts to sit up, she does the same, and he pulls up his Omni-Tool. A few waves of his fingers over the interface and the lights in the room brighten some, but not to their extent. "How the hell did I not know your lights did that?"

He smirks over at her, "Because it isn't standard. I synced up my Tool one day to control the lights. With a few calibrations and a couple blown fixtures later, I had it working flawlessly. It is against the building's tenant agreement, but what's the saying, 'what they don't know won't hurt them?'"

She laughs, "Damn, aren't you a little handy man?" When he raises a brow in question she just shrugs in response. "So, I guess since I stripped you it's my turn, right?" She spins so that she is facing him more.

He nods with a quick hum, "I'd like that, but I want to do thing at your speed. Turians are more open about being seen without clothes, but I know humans are different and more reserved."

She smirks, scooting closer, and he shifts more to look her straight on as response. "Yeah, we humans…what a bunch of prudes we are." She takes his hands, stroking her thumbs over the plates of his thumb absently, and brings his hands to her oversized sleeping shirt like he had done with her earlier today. She releases him and moves her hands to his forearms in silent encouragement, waiting to see if he wants to explore her first with the clothes before getting a look at her alien body.

He gently strokes along her waist, his fingers slightly overlapping as he grips her to his palms, and though it isn't a particularly sensitive spot on her body, the size comparison gets the same reaction from her body as when she had felt along his sharp teeth. She's getting some weird fetish for deadly men, it would seem. That, or it's just Garrus but that brings up more questions and confusion than the former, so she doesn't dwell on it.

It's then that he releases his hold to smooth his hands down to her hips, settling there to stroke her hip bone through the cloth of her shirt and pants before moving to the hem of her shirt and looking to her in silent question. She smiles and nods in silent permission, raising her arms so he can pull the fabric up and over her head, a passing thought of being thankful she doesn't have to go the bra talk with him today.

Once he throws the shirt away, he stops and studies her with his sharp predator's eyes. She feels her body heat up in a blush from his scrutiny for the first time since she joined the Alliance, and she wishes she knew how to read a Turian better in this situation. She finds herself fidgeting and tries for levity, "so? Not to squishy and pink for you, am I?"

Damn she feels horrible for being such a fool, what does it matter if he rejects her? They have already said that if this doesn't go anywhere that their friendship won't change, but damn does she want this, no matter how confused that blind desire makes her.

He smiles and runs a single talon across her left collar bone. "I know you too well to agree with that and expect to get out alive. What were the words you used for me? 'You're gorgeous?'" Jane swallows and nods, not able to tell where he's going with this. He lifts her eyes to his with a finger under her chin, "Jane, are you sure I'm what you want? Are you sure you don't want something a little closer to home?"

She smiles, understanding that his hesitance isn't because of her, it's because of his own self-conscious fears. "Home was never something that brought me happiness, Garrus, you do."

A loud, rhythmic rumble erupts and he presses against her, his tongue entering her mouth with a growl and bringing with it that deep vibration. The feeling flows through her tongue, down her throat and chest, to spread in her belly and cause of rush of heat between her legs. He pulls back and holds himself against her forehead. "Show me where to touch you."

She nods emphatically because she has no idea what to say to that and instead takes his hands in hers and places them against her breasts. "My breasts are very sensitive. You can squeeze them…" her breath comes faster as he shifts his hands without her lead and rubs the callused pad of his thumb over her nipple. He definitely learned this from somewhere because she's damn sure Turian women don't have breasts and he's repeated plenty of times that he's never slept with anyone outside of his species.

She is about to ask him just what the hell kind of porn he's been watching when he grazes the edge of one talon against her erect nipple. She jumps as if the touch was electric. "Do that again," she nearly pants and he raises a brow plate in intrigue. "I know it's weird, just…do that again."

He releases her breasts and runs the tips of his talons over her breasts, grazing nipple and leaving little trails against her skin. He has told her that his nails are blunted, but they have enough of an edge to pull a moan from her lips. _Damn, does he know what he's doing or not._

She doesn't have the mind to demand it again before he leans down and runs his rough tongue over her. She moans again, throwing her head back with her eyes closed. "Oh God, Garrus. Where the _hell_ did you learn this?"

She's surprised she can understand his chuckle and response of "I'm very observant" through his switching from one nipple to the other, stroking his talon or squeezing a nipple as he licks the other. Then, on her left breast, he wraps his flexible tongue around her nipple and pulls it between his stiff mouth plates with slight pressure.

The reaction is immediate as a rush of heat shoots straight to her legs and she moans, her hand not holding her from falling back grabs him none too gently on his fringe. He growls and pulls back, reaching for the clasps of his shirt. She reaches to help him but he pushes her gently and hooks one talon under her pants hem, releasing it with a snap in a silent command, which she follows unquestionably. Something in her questions why she is so turned on by a man taking command when every other experience had her dominating and controlling, but she tells that part of her to shut the hell up and enjoy the show.

As she gets her pants off, he still has his own, so when he gets to his knees to undo them and pull them off, she kneels before him and strokes along his waist, which elicits a low growl. He pulls his pants to his knees, quickly reaching to unhook his spurs, and then toss the pants away.

Then he grabs the back of her head and brings her mouth to his with his other hand going to stroke her breast, purring and rumbling that engine growl. After their tongues tangle, he moves his mouth to her neck and begins to nip, licking to sooth each sharp sensation. She throws her head back at the warring sensations and moves one hand to his own neck, trying to test his earlier reaction.

She strokes the softer skin of his hide and reaches back to caress along the plates running down his spine. He stills a bit as her had gets closer to his fringe and when her fingers dip into a soft spot directly under them, he moans.

"Right there," he pleads, his voice almost entirely lost behind his second vocal chord's constant vibration of growls and purrs. He trails his tongue up her neck and wraps around the shell of her ear, his panting breaths matching her own.

He works her neck some more as she massages the back of his skull, sometimes stroking under his fringe, which she has found is softer and more sensitive than the top, and sometimes leaning in to nip at his own neck, licking away the possible resulting sting. Each action gains a lustful response and soon he pulls her to lay in the bed beside him on her back as he leans up on one elbow and moves his free hand to trail down her body.

He stops once at her waist to stroke it, but when he doesn't receive as big a reaction he moves again. He investigates her belly button, probably more out of curiosity than lust, and stops to run his fingers lightly over her Reds tattoo directly below. He strokes the protrusion of bone from her hips, interested in how prominent the ridge is. Then, his hand moves lower and Jane finds herself holding her breath in anticipation of his reaction.

"You have hair, here. Is that normal?" He asks, not meanly, just quizzical.

She feels her cheeks reddening at the question and its absolute ridiculousness of having to explain with his hands so close to her center, but it doesn't necessarily ruin the mood. "It's normal, you probably didn't see any in the pornos because they usually shave or pull it all off." She shrugs dismissively, "Is that a problem?"

He smirks with a small laugh, "Not really. I can say right now that I won't be like the porn stars either."

At that he leans more over her and strokes the back of his hand against her wet lips while looking straight into her eyes. She starts at the unique feeling of his plated hand against her folds, but soon loses all thought as one knuckle brushes over her clit. At that she nearly jumps out of her skin and can't help the high moan that falls from her lips.

"Like that did you?" He laughs, the bastard. He leans down and runs his tongue up her neck with a nip at the end and repeats the movement.

A moment later, he sits up and moves to kneel between her legs. "Uh Garrus, not that you're doing a great job and all, but you still have claws on the ends of your fingers and I don't want those anywhere near my baby maker."

He chuckles and leans to the desk nearby, pulling something out of the drawer. He then looks like his fiddling with his talons for a few moments and she's about to question him when he nods and holds his hand out. "I put caps on them. Here, feel." Sure, enough, their little rubber caps over his talons and hooking around the plate of his last knuckle, but leaving the pads of his fingers bare. "They are for Turians who tend to work in a field where talons can't cause even the tiniest of damage. Surgeons and doctors use them all the time, so do you think they'll be fine?"

She nods and releases his hand, biting her lip before he leans over her and tangles his tongue with hers. He pulls back and trails his, now capped, talons down her torso and just the thought of the sensation is enough to have her back to her panting state.

She feels him part her lips for a better look, his crystal eyes taking in every detail and difference from what he's used to. She feels him stroke down her center, caressing her folds, before he pulls back and examines her fluid on his fingers. She knows this isn't usual foreplay, but damn if the sight of him with her juices coating his fingers doesn't make her wetter.

He returns to her center and caresses her again without entering her. She doesn't really know what he's doing and is about to say something when he strokes over her clit and she jumps. He hums and circles it again, sending electricity down to her toes and up to her head.

Knowing he's found the holy grail of sweet spots, he shifts his hand so that he can prop at her opening while rubbing her clit with his thumb. She feels herself holding her breath as he slips his finger into her cunt as he gives a particularly hard stroke around her clit.

_God damn him,_ she moans at the pleasure his ridged finger rubs against her inner walls as he pulls out and thrusts back in, _he's too fast of a learner. I won't last long at all._

She thinks she might have a chance to hold out a little longer until he curves his finger in an attempt to further explore her inner channel. The pressure against her g-spot cause her toes to curl, her fingers to clutch the blankets, and a high moan to escape her lips. He flicks his mandible and leans over her, his free hand moving to a breast to knead and pinch its nipple as he licks along her neck.

She never would have imagined her neck to be so sensitive, but with his rough tongue and hot breath against her skin, she feels herself coming closer to the edge as his fingers move in tandem. She can't stop the moans from escaping her lips and he seems to be getting just as into it, as she hears his moans echo into her ear when her walls quiver in anticipation of release.

It's with one hard stroke that has his finger pressing on the front of her inner wall and his thumb stroking over her clit simultaneously that she falls over the precipice with a cry and gasps for breath. Her hips thrust back against his shallow strokes as her walls quiver, his purring in her ear. She has never felt an orgasm like that before from fingering alone and she doesn't know if she should blame it on the big span of time between being with someone or the particular person giving her pleasure.

When she finally comes down enough to get her breath back to normal, he withdraws his fingers from her center and leans back on his knees. It is then that she finally gets to see how he matches up to the porn stars.

His cock is a bright blue with a silvery sheen. Along the underside of the shaft are plate-like ridges and the top is mostly smooth but for a set of small grooves at the thick and muscular base, where it then tapers down to a pointed tip. All over its curved surface shines his body's own personal lubricant and a slightly minty smell wafts through the air over her own arousal.

She moves to kneel before him and takes his shoulders in a silent request to let her take the lead. His nuzzle against her forehead before laying down is acquiescence enough as she moves to kneel by his side.

She first starts with kissing his neck, taking little nips with her teeth and licking the sting when he sucks in a breath and growls. One of her hands moves to stroke below his fringe and the other stops at his waist to give it a hard squeeze. He jumps at that, one leg coming up to bend at the knee and a feral growl erupts from his chest. She chuckles huskily and moves her hand lower.

To compare him to a human, he is slightly longer than average, but not enough that she would feel like being impaled, but his girth is where he differs. She can already tell that she won't be able to wrap her hand around his shaft and touch the tips of her fingers, and his base is larger, but even then, she feels if the time came he wouldn't hurt her. If anything, he might actually feel fucking amazing.

She strokes her finger tips along the ridged underside and he moans softly. He sounds really worked up and she feels slightly guilty for getting him like this, but she figures he'll forgive her soon enough and takes him in hand.

Once her fingers wrap around as much of his shaft as she could hold, his hips automatically lip to thrust into her fist and a deep growl escapes his lips. She smiles and leans into his neck to give him the same sweet torture he did her, her free hand going to his waist to roughing message.

His lubricant helps to aid in her strokes as he too loses himself, fisting the blankets and thrusting to follow that release. A feral, rhythmic growl fills the room as she strokes, stopping every once and awhile to circle his pointed head or slip to the base to give it a squeeze.

It is when she feels him tense and pulse that he grabs her head and pulls it to his lip plates, growling as he forcefully pulled her tongue into his mouth and squeezing it with his own. With an exhale of breath and disorganized thrusting he spends himself, his iridescent cum coating her hand and his belly.

She strokes the aftershocks out of him until he pulls back from overstimulation, still languidly kissing her. When she releases him, he releases her mouth and caresses his forehead against hers. "Damn, Jane. You sure know how to make a guy feel like a juvenile fledgling."

She laughs, "Same to you, buddy. Come on, let's get cleaned up." She gets up and offers to let him take the bathroom first. As he goes in to wash off his belly, she moves to the kitchen to wash her hands and get a glass of water.

She thought everything had went well, and despite her usual rush into bed, she felt like their slow pace was more in line with their friendship building into whatever more it was. She could handle with taking it slow and really didn't have to command obedience from her body on the fact either.

She returns to the bedroom and quickly runs into the free shower to rinse off before climbing into bed and pressing herself against Garrus' bare chest for a few hours of some hopeful shut eye.


	28. Chapter 28

~Jane~

Jane guesses that her hope for a dreamless night tonight was too much to hope for.

She finds herself once again on the endless stretch that represents her last ditch run for her life and the twisted concept of never being able to make it to the hovering shuttle before the Thresher Maw pelts her. Like her shadow, Jameson's pounding footsteps join her in the vain attempt at escape, and it is only a matter of time before the real nightmare begins.

Time slows enough so that she feels the weight of the heavy fluid against her back before an acrid smell hits her nose. The sudden pain of _oh yeah, I'm making that smell and it hurts like hell_ shoots up to flower into a white hot flame in her skull and down to her knees, weakening them and she stumbles not to fall.

Gritting her teeth against the pain she begs to be able to make it just a bit further, just make it to the shuttle, just grasp the shadowed hand before her, but before her feet bring her close enough, her body is slammed to the ground by a dead weight on her back.

"Shepard," Jameson's flooded voice drones in her ear, a mockery of intimacy. "We need to stop meeting like this." He digs his bony, skinless fingers into her neck and hip, laying his weight along her back and growling into her ear with his fluid filled lungs. "People might start getting ideas."

"Fuck you, Jameson!" She grabs at his hands, trying to get him off of her. If she can get just a bit of his weight from pinning her, she can just reach the hand hovering just out of her reach, tormenting her.

He laughs, blood foamed spittle hitting her cheek and making her cringe. In his moment of distraction, she feels his weight shift just enough that she can throw her shoulder and toss him to the side.

Feeling his hands release her, she rushes to her feet before he regain his hold. He falls to the ground and just as she is stretching to the shadowed figure in the shuttle, his hands wrap around her thighs to pull her down. She lands, hard, almost directly on his still laughing corpse, the landing jarring her back and pulling a scream from her lips.

His body stinks of melted suit and skin. His face had been without a helmet and his hands must have scrambled against his back once the acid had hit because she now lays face to face with his seeping skin and wounds. His nose is a gaping hole where cartilage was eaten away, half of his lips are gone, revealing the teeth and tissue beneath, and his eyes are milky white, his left oozing from his slam against the ground.

"Now, Shepard, what's the rush?" His boney hands claw at her back, holding her to his body as she struggles to pull away. "You wouldn't want to leave everyone behind would you? Where would you be without us?"

She screams as some of his fingers dig dip into her fiery wounds. She knows that this Jameson in her dreams is just a figment, the real Jameson was a shy and withdrawn guy despite his size, but her internal pep talk isn't helping to keep this monster from sapping her strength.

The thing below her sighs, seemingly bored with his small effort to hold her. "Why do you fight me, Shepard? Is it really that great out there?" He withdraws his fingers from her wounds and strokes his hands up her back, causing her to tremor in disgust. "You have all you'd ever want here," he pulls his remaining lips up in a sneer, "I'll make it worth your while. You can trust me."

"Shut up, you sick bastard," she balls her hand into a fist and throws it back, preparing to smash the figment straight in the face, but faster than she can comprehend, he grabs her wrist, stopping her centimeters from his ruined face.

"Now, Janey." His sneer remains as she pulls against her mother's pet name for her. "That's no way to respond to my fine offer." He leans up, while pulling her down with his grip on her wrist and his hand against her back, bringing his pungent breath against her ear. "What's he got that I don't?"

A shuddering of the ground, mimicking her own agonized revulsion, brings her eyes up and straight into the gaping, blue mouth of a Thresher Maw where the shuttle was hovering just before. That bright blue is the last sight she sees and Jameson's maniacal laughter is the last sound in her ears before she is drowned in intense burning.


	29. Chapter 29

~Garrus~

Garrus arrived at work in a good mood today, and not just because he had completed his first case while shadowing Detective Chellick but because of the intimate evening he had with Jane Shepard, his best friend and confidant.

He knows he should be embarrassed with how fast it ended on his part, but he had never felt someone hit so many sensitive spots on his body at once. Her fingers and mouth felt like they were everywhere and even inside his plate, and with her moans when he had pleasured her first, he was surprised he even lasted a fraction as long as he did.

Turians weren't an overly sensual species, what could qualify for foreplay was just enough to open plates and the act itself was treated as more of a physical need and necessity. With Jane, and probably humans, it became more of the whole experience and he definitely couldn't complain.

Even the smoothness of her skin was appealing because of the many reactions he could pull from her. Already having one night exploring her and he still felt like there were secrets her body still held.

That's not even mentioning the warm smoothness of her tight cunt around his finger, her fluids carrying her scent through the air to combine with his own, a smell he never would have thought he would've enjoyed, but damn did he want to smell it over and over. He wasn't sure if his desire was from the fact that the feeling of her and the thought of the two coming together hasn't yet been discovered or if it was because it was her, but he was definitely in all the way and waiting for more.

The only thing keeping him from approaching her about the fact was that when he woke this morning to prepare for work, she immediately curled into a whimpering ball. He didn't know if what they did last night caused her to start having nightmares again, but he couldn't help feeling partially guilty at maybe being a cause. He had caressed her hair and hummed into her scalp before leaving in silent apology, and was somewhat alleviated when she calmed and relaxed her body.

Now, though, Garrus finds himself shaking his head to clear his running thoughts as he takes a seat at his new desk in his new office. It isn't big and the second desk must be his office mate, but it's a nice change from the solitary locker he had when he was stationed in Enforcement.

At the swish of the automatic doors, he stands at attention and respect as Chellick walks in holding a set of datapads. "Garrus," he nods in acknowledgment, "I have an internal affair I need you to look into."

He hands a datapad over and Garrus scans it quickly, taking note of a human C-Sec agent under investigation. "You'll still be reporting anything you find to me beforehand," Chellick continues, "but this gives you an idea of how the systems work."

_Busy work, in other words_, Garrus thinks to himself. "Yes, sir," he answers with a head nod. Trying his best to listen to Jane's words of advice not to piss off Chellick in case he ever needed something in return.

Chellick nods in a dismissal, "I have an interview for you to follow up on once you send me your report."

Garrus sits down to get a better look at the report. A reprimand needs to be given to a human detective, named Harkin, for alleged use of alcohol while on a stake-out for a case. Though from the reports he deserves much more, Garrus is left to collect witness reports, previous reprimands, and fill out the proper forms to submit to the executor. Busy work like he had figured and a complete waste of the most of his day as he submits the collection of data to Chellick.

He later admits that it may have been worthwhile when Chellick hands over a datapad with a location and contact information. "Take this, review it and this witness statement," he hands over another datapad, "and follow up with our Mrs. Tasik. She claims that she remembers more concerning her case."

Garrus scans the case file quickly, remembering it vaguely from before their medical research case. Mrs. Tasik had believed someone had stolen some of her jewelry when she was visiting the Ward's political offices, but it was deemed less important than the stolen medical supply case so it had been placed off to the side for when it was completed or when more evidence showed up.

Garrus nods in understanding and decides that he'll take a late lunch in the ward before he contacts Mrs. Tasik for a meeting, sending a ping to Jane to see if she would like to join him. She messages back quickly in an affirmative.

He finds himself in a highly crowded restaurant that served some stringy food that looks like pale worms, _noodles_ she called them, in a liquid broth. She had excitedly all but begged to try it and he agreed with the thought in mind that her so called _pizza_hadn't been so bad. Hopefully eating this food would prove a little easier.

Looking around the restaurant as he holds a table in anticipation for her to show up, he sees plenty of Turians managing to each a bowl of the stringy food, so he guesses that not only is it edible but must be somewhat easy to eat. No self-respecting Turian would be caught struggling to each their own food in public.

Seeing her step into the restaurant, he sees her scan over the crowd and eyes light up when she spots him. She makes a small wave gesture, which he returns, and diverts her attention to looking for a path through the throng of people.

As she makes her way to him with a smile, she doesn't notice the Turian carrying a bowl to his table, speaking over his shoulder. The two collide, her hands grabbing the bowl from dropping with a smile.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir," she nods to him in a Turian show of respect. Garrus has to quietly applaud her attention to Turian nuances, even exaggerating some expressions to make up for the lack of subharmonics.

The male, however, doesn't respond with the same respect and instead throws his head back in disgust. "You should be. Now I have to get another bowl so I don't die from your contamination."

_Great_, Garrus thinks, _one more human hating Turian, out to make us all look like complete racists._

"Excuse me?" Jane crosses her arms, raises one eyebrow, and leans back onto one leg. "I didn't touch your food."

He waves one hand dismissively in her face, to which she openly scowls. "Typical, you come in here and run into _me_ and then refuse to take any responsibility for what you could've contaminated my food with." He shoves the bowl into her hands, splashing the hot liquid onto her shirt and making her stumble a bit. "I don't know what diseases you animals carry."

At his remark, Jane straightens, one her fists falling to her side in a blue flare. "Listen you barefaced asshole," she jabs her finger at him, stopping a fraction from his plates, Garrus gets up to intervene, concluding that Jane's patience is running short, "you want_this animal_ to contaminate your food?" She spits into his bowl, to the outburst of amusement of a nearby table of Krogan, and shoves it back into his hands, "There's your contamination."

Garrus makes it to her just as she finishes and forces himself between the two, stopping the Turian in his tracks as he drops his food to charge her with a low growl, the Krogans groan in disappointment.

"Officer," he jerks, his hateful subvocals vibrating violently through the air, making Garrus wince at the assault on his ears from this close. Garrus sees that he is in fact barefaced as Jane called out. _Good on her to understand our insults, too._ "This miscreant assaulted me and then tried to poison me by spitting in my food like some…filthy creature."

Jane snorts and shakes her head, which Garrus ignores and he directs his attention back to the Turian. "Sir, I was here and technically, you assaulted her first."

The male's angry subvocals change to ones of disbelieve. "She blindly walked right into me! You can't possibly take her side."

Garrus sighs in frustration, "The two of you were victims of an accident, plain and simple. If you don't take my word for it, I'm sure everyone here can attest to that." His, up until now, quiet subvocals change into ones of reprimand, "You took it a step further by insulting her and then shoving your hot food into her." He doesn't know quiet why he's having such a hard time keeping his vocals from sifting into a more personal tone over what happened, but he thinks it has a lot to do with his feelings for Jane he refuses to look into. "She has every right to press charges if you make a deal out of this. I can assure you," he jabs a finger into the barefaced Turian's chest, "you won't like how it turns out."

As if she senses a shift in his attitude from professional to personal, Jane interrupts, "I won't press charges. We can just forget all of this, Mr…." Garrus looks over his shoulder to see her leaning around his side to direct her question to the other Turian.

"Talid," he manages with a gruff. His hate and disdain for Jane ringing loudly in his subvocals. Garrus has to keep his growl in check at the bastard's disrespect for Jane's attempt at pleasantries.

"Well, Mr. Talid, Officer, I think I'm going to head home and get myself a new shirt." She turns and makes her way out, returning the nods of the table of Krogan.

Garrus leans in to Talid, grabbing the scruff of his shirt, "Next time, try not to be such a credit to your kind and think about what you say and how it looks for the rest of us," he shoves him back, turning and leaving before anything else can be said.

Outside, he meets Jane, she has an apologetic smile on her face. "So, sorry about ruining your chance at lunch." He chuckles and shakes his head, not complaining about the show. "I guess I'll have to make it up to you by ordering a big dinner or something."

"Sounds great," he hands her a stack of napkins he had grabbed as he left the restaurant. She rubs at the liquid on the front of her shirt, a scowl creasing between her eyebrows. "Oh," he lifts her chin, "nice one with the 'barefaced' insult. I had no idea that you were learning slang with your etiquette lessons."

She snorts and smirks, "You think I'd learn how to be nice but not how to fling the insults when the vinegar started flowing?" He tilts his head in confusion, to which she laughs. "Basically, I won't take shit without throwing my own insults back. No one calls me an animal and expects me to just take it."

He smiles and lets her get back to cleaning her shirt. When she is done, the two buy a quick protein bar from a nearby vending machine and eat together before he has to go back on shift.


	30. Chapter 30

~Garrus~

When he arrived home, Garrus found that Jane had ordered large bowls of noodles to be delivered, saying that she really had a craving that not even an _almost arrest_ could dampen.

He found the noodles much easier to eat than the pizza and actually wondered how she managed without a tongue that could wrap around the noodles. Halfway through dinner, she tried some of his meal, her eyes brightening at the taste. She all but ate the rest of his bowl, stating that it was better than hers, but he didn't complain because he, in turn, enjoyed the more salty taste of her bowl.

He told her of the rest of his day following up on the case of Mrs. Tasik's missing jewelry and how it ended up in a complete waste of time when a second interview showed that she had merely misplaced her jewelry in her home.

Jane calms her guffawing enough to speak, her face red and her lips sucking in big gulps of air. "You're telling me that this little old lady was just confused. That's so cute, it's like a sitcom concept."

He groans, "It was not _cute_ and the fact that I still have paperwork to fill out on it isn't _cute_." He rubs the base of his palms against his brow plates, "I still have a headache from the amount of paperwork C-Sec needs to simply say 'she is senile and can't remember her own name on some days, let alone where she put her fancy jewelry so she blames a thief.'"

"Ah," Jane pats his back, "come on, now, it's not so bad. At least your first case was something entertaining."

He snorts, "Wow, what a pep talk. I feel so invigorated and ready to get back to filling out forms."

She laughs and leans her weight against his side. "You are such a smart ass. I don't know how I'm going to manage to take orders without thinking up some quick remark." She lightly smacks her hand against his arm, "If I get charged with latrine duty the whole time I'm in training, I'm definitely going to make you pay."

He hums, "And just what would you have to do to teach me a lesson." She looks up to him with a question in her eyes. "I've heard I'm very hard headed, it might take quite a bit of punishment to get through my thick skull."

She smirks, "That so?" She stands and leans over at the waist, keeping her eyes locked with his. "I guess it's a good thing that I'm just as stubborn, huh?" She strokes one hand at the very tip of his keel bone.

He grabs her hand, the beginning of a purr starting in his chest, and stands, bringing her upright as they maintain eye contact. "I think we should probably test that." She smirks and rises to her tiptoes, he dropping his head to meet her.

She presses her pulp, warm lips against his plates, opening immediately after one quick peck to give him access. He rewards her with a deep growl and plunges his tongue into her mouth, wrapping around her plump little muscle and coaxing it to tangle with his own. He's becoming more and more accustomed to her smells and tastes, her musky and citrus taste in the beginning with the sweet smell of her arousal the more he turns her on.

He drags his talons lightly through her hair, one hand remaining in her red locks as the other then moves down her arm and coming to her waist. He squeezes once as habit and moves to tug her shirt from around her hips.

It's just as his hand touches her slightly cooler skin that she draws back. "Let's go to the bedroom instead, Garrus. That way we are more comfortable."

Agreeing that her idea is probably best if they find themselves following last night's path, he takes her hand and leads her to the bedroom.

Upon passing the threshold, he finds her back to him and slowly backing him to the bed as her hands search for the clasps of his shirt. Once his knees hit the frame and he sits, he reaches for her shirt, pulling it up so begin his assault on her revealed flesh.

He licks once along the curve of her ribs and she falters slightly, her breath quickening. He moves in again, to lick near the divot in her belly, navel he thinks it's called, and she swats him, frustrated with his distractions from her task.

He pulls back chuckling, a deep rumble of lust mixing in his vocals, deciding to quicken her endeavor by unsnapping his own clothes. She notices this and moves to her own clothes, pulling off her shirt to reveal an article of clothing not there last night.

As she twists her arm behind her back to adjust something on it, he can't take his eyes off of the flexibility that would be nearly impossible for his own kind. He can't help the turn-on growl he emits at the sight, and she smiles with a deep throated chuckle.

She tosses the clothing to the side and moves to help him pull his now loosened shirt off. As she leans close, the position puts her chest within reach. He forgets the shirt and wraps one arm around the backs of her thighs, pulling her close as the other hand goes to one of her breasts.

He strokes the pink center with the callus of his thumb, hearing her panted breath in response, and moves his mouth to the other. He nips first, to which she gasps, then wraps his tongue around it as it peaks, growling when he smells her responding arousal. Her hands fist in the hem of his shirt when he twists her nipples with his tongue and between forefinger and thumb.

"God damn it, Garrus," she pants. She moves her hands to his shoulders and shoves. "Get this damn shirt off, you fucking tease."

He chuckles and follows her orders. She decides to take her revenge by immediately going to his waist when he has his arms above his head and sufficiently trapped in the shirt's sleeves.

She digs her flat nails into the soft hide and he groans, feeling his pelvic plates loosening at her forceful approach. He quickly jerks his shirt from his arms, tosses it who knows where, and jerks her against him. He claims her mouth again, nipping hard against her lips and she responds with a low moan and her tongue shoving between his lip plates.

He moves each hand around a thigh and tugs her up into his lap, pulling the two of them further up into the bed. Once situated, he moves to her neck to run his tongue along the sharp bone at the base of her neck, the closest thing to a cowl. She gasps and grips the back of his neck, pressing into the nerves below his fringe, sending a hot pulse straight to his groin.

He moans, his subharmonics beginning to overlap in desire, and moves one hand to her breast, laving her neck along the pulse, his blood pumping in his own ears to mirror hers. With her situated upon him, he doesn't expect it when she leans forward and runs her tongue over his centermost crest.

She can't quiet reach the very tip with the way he is holding her, but she repeats it, coupled with her finger's steady message of the nerves below it, and his growl drowns out its accompanying moan. He feels himself growing hard within his sheath and knows his pants are going to get really uncomfortable any minute with her ministrations and sweet arousal growing stronger.

When she repeats her action, accompanied with a suction at the crest's base, right where its nerves are bundled the tightest, and a squeeze of her thighs around his waist, his cock slides free of his sheath with a feral sounding growl.

"Jane," his voice his heavy from trying to overpower his rumbling second vocals, "We need to get undressed." Wordlessly she nods emphatically in agreement and shifts off, working at the closure of her pants, as he works to free his cock from straining against its confinement.

Just as the last of his clothing is thrown to the side than Jane is straddling him once more, pushing his back down against the pillows. She leans down to him and uses that sweet suction against his neck as she messages his waist with one hand and wrapping one tiny hand around his pulsing need and pumping once, pulling a growled groan from his mouth as he buries his head in her hair.

She sits up and sifts, raising herself on her knees so that her sweet cunt hovers over his ridged cock, his hands going to her hips. She smirks and lowers just enough that her heat radiates over his tip, he growls and tries to thrust, but all he accomplishes is her hand stroking down as she raises on her knees away from him.

Deciding that just for today he can resort to playing her game, he relaxes his hips. She lowers back to hovering just above him, holding his tip within her radiating heat but not touching her wet center.

"Jane," he pleads, wanting to be in her and finally get to feel the sweet sensations he's being fantasizing about since he felt her with his fingers. He looks up to her and purrs, stroking his hands up from her hips and over her back.

Her skin doesn't feel as smooth and he doesn't have a chance to really question it before her body stiffens and her eyes widen. She jumps off of him in a panic and hard enough that she falls to the floor.

He immediately jumps up, his arousal forgotten in his concern. Jane is sitting on the floor, her head in her hands and he can hear her sob one loud sob, her shoulders shaking in silent tremors.

"Jane," he tries to console her, but she flinches from the warmth of his hand before it make contact with her skin. Resolving not to touch her he purrs softly in comfort, letting it be the only sound in the room.

After a look time of her buried in herself, she looks up to Garrus with pain in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I didn't think that you touching my scars would cause such a reaction. I mean, you've touched me on the back before."

He moves from his crouch to a sitting position with his back against the bed. Immediately, she moves closer and he lets her burrow under his arm so that it rests on her shoulders. She takes his other hand and strokes the plates over it. "I guess I'm the biggest cock tease you've ever had."

He chuckles, "I've had worse." She shrugs, her only attempt at light heartedness, and he rubs his palm against her upper arm, pulling her to him.

They sit in silence for a while before she stands and excuses herself to the bathroom. Garrus decides that it's for the best that he take the room after her and rinse himself with cold water, he had retracted but was still hard and plenty ready. Whatever touching her scars had brought up had ended the night as far as Jane was concerned and it wasn't fair to deal with his situation in any other way.

When he had taken care of himself, much to the disappointment of his pulsing arousal, he slips some comfortable pants on and finds himself at a loss on if he should sleep in the same bed as her or go into the other room.

He must have stood there long enough to catch her attention because Jane pulls the blankets up with a weary smile. "Don't let me kick you out of your own bed."

Mind made up for him, he climbs in and finds her with a pair of shorts and a loose fitting shirt on. She lays with her back to him and he settles on his own side for bed, not knowing how to approach her earlier outburst and cursing himself for his lack of expertise at helping her through her obviously pained memories.

He thinks she has fallen asleep and he is soon to follow when she speaks over the silence. "I was hit with that last Thresher Maw spit. I think I told you how Jameson took the brunt because he was behind me, but I also got hit with the splash at least.

"I passed out before making it to the shuttle and I had to be pulled onboard. When I got to a hospital, I had to have extensive skin grafts. I couldn't leave the hospital for the longest time and even breathing hurt. I still felt the acid for almost two years after Akuze. Even now I think the acid caused damage to my nerves because sometimes I can't feel the lightest touches on my skin.

"I was okay with the scars, they were on my back so I didn't even see them, and if they didn't hurt I was fine with however disfigured I may look. Sometimes though, they just remind me of how badly I failed."

It's at her heartbroken pain that Garrus risks reaching to her, and she goes willing against his chest. He buries his muzzle in her hair and purrs, his pain and want to comfort her ringing out with hopes that she can understand.

He knows that he will never take a quick chance at pleasure over her comfort and though she may not share his feelings on the matter, he will always follow through with what is right for her above his solitary sense of satisfaction. This thing he has with her may mean nothing more than friends with benefits in her eyes, but he can't fight that it's becoming much more to him.


	31. Chapter 31

~Jane~

It had been a week since Jane's major freak out while trying to have sex with Garrus for the first time. She hadn't expected such a violent reaction to the simple act of him running his hands across her back, but it brought back the twisted memories of a rotting corpse forcing itself on her that she nearly vomited on his bedroom floor.

Since then she had felt distant from him even though he really tried to cheer her and get her mind away from her dark thoughts. He had silently understood that she wanted space and let her come to him, not complaining in the slightest at her dramatic backtrack. His actions only left her to pounder his motives all the more.

Was he like her nightmares feared, someone just out for the pleasure and a unique experience? She had screamed and protested to the figment of her mind as it held her down in the dirt of Akuze, but looking at Garrus now, she still can't help but to wonder. He didn't seem to act like he was as she feared and she figured she was too much work if she was a quick fuck-buddy.

Then there was the feeling that he was willing to stand back and let her take control of their pace, letting her come to him for comfort and expecting nothing more. That thought only made her guiltier for keeping him at a distance and dragging him through the rollercoaster that was her nightmares and their influence on her waking hours.

She had battled with her confusion for so long that she hadn't noticed until this afternoon that this would be her last night on the Citadel before she was to ship back to Earth for the completion of her training, and her last night to spend with him. She didn't think she could push past her pain in time to finish where they had left off, but she did want to spend the night with him. With that in mind, she had sent him a quick ping asking to meet after his shift for some farewell drinks, to with he agreed happily.

She decides to return to Super Nova, the bar they had visited almost an entire month ago, because it is both close to his apartment and looks to cater to all species somewhat equally. She chooses two stools at the end of the bar with a full view of the club and waits with an eye out for Garrus' arrival.

The club is already packed full of people from every race, all either swaying and grinding on the dance floor, or in groups with their drinks in hand. She spots the bright blue of his visor as he enters from her vantage point and smiles when she notices that he must have picked her up with it.

He makes his way up the raised area of the bar and up to her, a smirk on his face. "It's your last night here and you want to relive the last time you went back to Earth?" He raises one eye brow plate.

"I thought you might need some practice on your carrying drunks home routine, seeing as how you're some fancy detective sitting at a desk all day." She smirks back and turns to join him on his way to the counter to order a drink.

The two place their orders, something simple for him and something mixed and strong for her. _What the hell, I'm going back to duty, better live it up._

He turns to her as the bartender moves to make her drink, his glass raised halfway to his plates, with a raised brow, "Going straight to the hard stuff? Got to love a lady with some class."

She snorts a laugh, "Hey. I'm one hell of a classy lady." She dramatically cocks her hand at the wrist to bring her fingers to her chest. "I'm insulted you would ever think otherwise." He flicks a mandible out and takes a drink as the bartender sets her drink down.

Before she can hand him a credit chit, a large hand from her opposite side stops hers and tosses one of its own. She turns and comes face to face with a tall, dark haired man with a smile she can only equate to a sleazy leer. "Don't worry about that. A pretty lady like you should've have to buy her own drinks."

"You'd do well not to call me a _pretty lady_ like you know me." She swats his chit in disgust and tosses hers at the bartender, her lip raising in a scowl at the tall stranger. "Leave me the hell alone and let me enjoy my night."

He leans closer to her, causing her to instinctively jerk back and bump Garrus, and she is able to quickly notice two other men over his shoulder showing great interest. His breath is laced with the smell of alcohol as it puffs against her face. "Now come on, why's a girl like you all alone in a big club like this if you don't want a guy to offer to buy you a drink."

"She's not alone," Garrus growls from over her shoulder, standing up from leaning against the counter, towering over her and her harasser, "and she asked you to leave."

Ignoring her now, the man turns his attention to Garrus, the two men now moving in behind him. "And what are you going to do about it _Skullface_? Your own women can't stand the look of you so you have to get into other people's business?"

He steps closer, pushing into Jane's personally bubble of space with his arid stench of BO and alcohol, and continues, "You think your big bad monster act is going to scare me? My father killed plenty of you ugly fuckers on Shanxi." He jabs a finger at Garrus, and despite the rumbling of his anger against her back, Garrus doesn't move a muscle. "If it was me, I would've killed every last one of you bastards even after the cease fire because it's no different from putting down a mad dog."

The only thing worse than someone being an asshole racist was someone being a racist to her friend. She is about to shove the man out of her space when she feels the subtle shift behind her and hears the low growl.

Quickly, knowing that all of it is a precursor to a charge, she tenses her body, knowing he can feel it against his chest and hoping that he recognizes it as a silent warning. She is perfectly fine getting in trouble with the law for getting into a heated race argument, but if he, as an upcoming detective, were to get into trouble, his hopes of helping people may end before even beginning.

"Let's go, Garrus," she quietly says over her shoulder, locking her blazing green eyes with the man's dark brown that has just remembered her. "He's not worth it." The tension against her back eases a bit in silent concession, and she turns to leave with Garrus at her side.

They make it a few steps before she hears the man's voice over the din of thumping bass and mixed conversations. "Now you need a woman to fight your battles? No wonder you lost, you bone-faced coward!"

Suddenly, she is startled by the sound of glass breaking right next to her and the cold shock of fluid splashing across the top of her back. Her mind blanks instantly and the vivid feelings of burning pain and pungent smell of oozing flesh, her dead comrades laid behind her like some demented version of breadcrumbs from a fairytale. She tenses at the expectant pain of flesh melting straight into the deep tissues below and her teeth clench against a scream, but it doesn't come.

She doesn't know how long it takes her mind to return back to realty to discover that her back isn't sizzling from Thresher acid, it's merely cold from the liquid soaking her shirt. She also quickly comes to the realization that she isn't on Akuze, but in a club on the Citadel.

A club on the Citadel that she was at with Garrus. Garrus, who is no longer standing to her right.

She spins quickly to the, just now registering, sounds of a fight and finds Garrus engaged in all three men at the bar.

Well, two is more accurate because one sits on his ass, his hand to his nose as it bleeds profusely. The other two are slow from their drinks and as one swings, Garrus easily moves to the side and elbows him in the abdomen. He stumbles back as the other takes a lunge to Garrus' back, struggling to wrap his arms over his broad cowl and reaching to his face, most likely going for his mandibles.

Garrus grabs one of his legs with his large hand, ducks the shoulder of that arm, and jerks with a shift of his weight, pulling the man off his back and to the ground with a sickening crack. The only sign he isn't dead is in his moan and hand raises to cup the back of his head.

The one who was elbowed slowly approaches as Jane finally unfreezes from her earlier panic to do the same, quickly noticing that broken nose is moving in with a broken bottle. Knowing that the stand still is all a distraction, she moves to intercept before Garrus finds himself facing an assailant with a weapon and without armor.

Just as broken nose rushes, the bottle held low to stab under Garrus' carapace, and unknowingly into the area of his unprotected midsection, she does too. Quickly, she stands in his way, staggering his approach enough that when he gets within arm's reach, she is able to shoot her hand out and grab his wrist in a death grip.

He immediately drops the bottle, and the last fighter, noticing their plan failed, tries one last drunken attempt at rushing Garrus. He easily dodges the sloppy punch and returns with one of his own, the man's body falling to the ground and out cold.

Broken nose struggles out of Jane's grip and she smirks when she notices that beneath the blood is the tall, dark haired man who had started it. Deciding that she should get some payback for his attempt to stab an unknowing Garrus during the fight, she twists his wrist, making him cringe closer to her so she can throw her head back and return it with full force straight against his battered nose. His high scream and following whimpering is worth the smear of his blood on her forehead and the escort out by security.

As they head home in companionable quiet, she notices that the breaking glass must have been the sound of the glass hitting Garrus' back because the entire back of his shirt is soaked in the same smelling liquor as hers. His right mandible seems a bit off from where she walks next to him, and she thinks it may be hurting him by the cringes that accompany any small movement from it.

When they arrive home, she takes him to the couch, pushing lightly on his shoulders in a silent order. He complies, so she moves to the bathroom to wash her forehead quickly and take out the medical kit he keeps and a towel.

Upon returning, she finds him probing the questionable mandible lightly, a light groan emanating from his lips. She places the medical kit down and removes his hand to get a better look. "Let me see, Garrus," she says softly when he flinches before she even touches plate.

Softly, she runs the tips of her fingers over the mandible, from back to front, then she dips below and runs along where it lays against his chin. Sure enough, it doesn't feel like it lays flat anymore like the other, but the problem doesn't seem to be in the actual mandible.

Continuing towards the back to reach the joint, she takes her other hand to his left to mirror the move, figuring that the joint might be the cause. When her fingers reach the joint, a soft groan and grit of his teeth accompany the disjointed feeling on the right where a smooth connection should exist like on the left.

Removing her fingers to crouch down and look him in the eyes, Jane smiles apologetically. "Garrus, your mandible feels like it's dislocated." She has a good feeling that's what it is, her curiosity of him had led her to look up his species with more than just porn and she was pretty proud to have learned quite a bit of his anatomy.

A mandible dislocation was actually a pretty common injury, though really painful. Turians had a lot of nerves in their mandibles and in their mouths, so usually this type of injury didn't tend to come from bar fights. Nobody wanted to pull on a body part of their opponent that they didn't want to be injured in return. _Figures that it would seem Turians even held bar fights to a higher standard._

"I've had it happen before," he groans, his voice gaining a muffled quality from his attempt to keep from moving his mandible. "You have to pop it back it. I can't do it because of the angle."

Jane's eyes widen in surprise and she stands up quickly, his clear blue eyes still locked onto hers. "Me? I don't know one thing about popping a mandible back in." This wasn't some quick patch up job, she had seen diagrams of his anatomy and she had certainly seen a more personal view of his body, but messing with something like this? The possibility of hurting him more? "Maybe we should just take you to go see a doctor or something."

He groans louder and leans his head forward, his forehead coming to rest against her stomach. "No doctors, I don't want to spend our last night waiting around in a clinic all damn night." She can't help but frown at his pained groan and she rubs his shoulder, her right thumb softly stroking over the plate just before his fringe to keep away from his mandible. "How about I help you through it." He looks up to her, a plea in his eyes.

Her shoulders sag in an exhale and she nods with a soft smile, shifting her right hand into his grasp.

He takes her hand and runs it to the connection of his mandible, his eyes closing in both concentration and in an attempt to fight the pain. "Curl your fingers over the back of my mandible and take a hold. Got it. Now you are going to want to pull it away from my head and push it back, but keep it straight. Understand." He looks up to her, their eyes meeting before she nods in understanding and shifts her stance to get a better angle.

"On the count of three." She quickly kisses next to his eye socket, just below the bottom of his brow plate. "One…two," before he can tense in expectation of three, she pulls out and shoves back on his mandible, feeling a snap and hearing a soft pop as it shifts back into place. His loud yell and growl mixture drowns out her call of 'three' and he curls into her stomach, his hands fisting her shirt as he rides out the pain.

"What the hell happened to _three_?" His voice is muffled by her body but she can't hear the exasperation laced with grateful tones. "Who taught you to count?"

She laughs and he pulls his head away to give her a left handed smile. She moves to the medical kit and hands it to him, figuring he would know best what to use to finish doctoring his mandible. "Did I forget to tell you that I didn't go to school much? In fact, I pretty much dropped out after third grade." He raises a brow plate and she laughs again.

He hands her a wrap, instructing her how to place it as a support to keep him from unconsciously flexing his injured mandible. After she is done tending to his wound, she helps him remove his wet shirt and towel off, returning back with a clean shirt for both of them from the bedroom.

The two spend the rest of their night finishing off their remaining beers in the fridge and watching reruns of cheesy action flicks. He doesn't bring up the incident at the bar and she figures that he probably didn't notice how she had frozen from fear.


	32. Chapter 32

~Jane~

_Please not this again,_ Jane silently pleas as she finds herself running without thought towards the hovering rescue in the distance.

She doesn't even flinch when she feels the weight of the Maw's acid upon her back, but despite her every effort, she still stumbles to her knees when the pain kicks in like a missile straight up her spine.

She isn't surprised either when she feels the bony dead hands wrap around her shoulders and bring her body completely to the ground, her hand outstretched to grasp the shadow in the shuttle just out of reach. A shriek is jarred from her lips as the weight of her own body and that of Jameson comes to a sudden stop against the hard ground.

"Janey, Janey, Janey," Jameson taunts as his fingers tangle in her hair. "Three date, is it now, and I still haven't gotten to first base." He shifts his weight, making her grit her teeth against the scream, and breathes in her ear, "Playing hard to get, mmm, I like that." He is so close that she can hear the sounds of the fluid from his lungs as they are eaten from the acid and break down rumbling in her ear.

She can't fight him and she has no strength to yell and scream at him, knowing full well that it will accomplish nothing. She hopes that if she just sits here and accepts it that maybe she can wake up sooner, away from this hell and far away from Akuze.

"Ah, come on now," Jameson raises his weight off of her and even though it should relieve the pain in her back, it only brings an all new one as she is pelted by the feeling of the air against her molting skin. She sobs, begging her head to stop this torment and to let her wake. "You're always so feisty. Got nothing left?" He sifts so that he is leaning against one elbow to her side, turning so that she is faced with the full vision of his decaying flesh. "He ain't doing it for you anymore?"

"Please," she resorts to all out begging, something she never thought she'd do, but with the torment of continually finding herself here no matter what she tries to do to get over the pain she can't find it in her to care. "Just tell me what you want," she dips her head to ground, her forehead coming in contact with the cold, immovable planet, and her breath stirs dust up and onto her tear soaked cheeks.

"Trust me, Jane." The voice that breaks through the fog isn't Jameson's, it's one completely different and unnatural to this hell with its dual toned harmonics and deep resonance.

Her head jerks up in shock, the searing pain shooting down her back and to her toes going unaccompanied by a scream as she finds herself locking gazes with the last person she would have ever expected in this nightmare.

Hanging from the shuttle with a hand outstretched towards her is Garrus Vakarian, her best friend and the one person she is scared to say means more to her than anything she could imagine. His blue eyes shine strongly with support and his stance is strong, not like anything else in this dream but like a solid guidance out of her pain. Staring into his crystal orbs, she finds the strength to pull past Jameson's grip and reach out to him, hoping that her drained and twisted body can manage the distance.

Just as her fingers graze against the tips of his talons, Jameson twists his bony fingers into her hair, jerking her head back to growl into her ear. "You think you can really trust him? What's he going to do once he gets tired of your shit? Figures you're too much effort?"

At his words, the distance between her and Garrus seems to widen, their outstretched hands no longer within reach of one another. She feels her strength and hope draining, the vision of her present starting to fade into shadows once again, and she cries out in anguish, silently praying for Garrus not to leave her.

"Trust me, Jane," he voice echoes just before she loses all hope. The shadows dissipate to bring him within her grasp, "You have to trust me."

Gritting her teeth and digging the hand braced against the ground into the dirt, she screams and uses every ounce of her remaining energy to throw herself forward, and finally trusting that he will catch her.


	33. Chapter 33

~Jane~

Jane wakes with a start, but it's not the pained or panicked gasp or thrashing she is used to, more like a feeling of realization. She knows that her dream of Garrus on Akuze means something, but she was never any good at interpreting things like that.

All she knows is that he had saved her, figuratively of course but saved her in some way from fighting in the dirt with the body of Jameson before coming to an end by the Thresher Maw. Could it be a sign that maybe she should stop dodging around her internal conflict of what her feelings for Garrus really were? Was she really finding herself at a point where she could trust someone at their outward signs of care and not expect them to turn on her?

As she constantly turns the thought over in her head, she feels his arm drape over her waist and draw her against his warm chest. She smiles at the gentle embrace as he nuzzles against the back of her neck and head.

"You okay?" he softly questions, his groggy voice a deep combination of subharmonics almost louder than his speech.

She reaches back and stokes along his arm on her side, "I'm fine. Just woke up and trying to get back to sleep." He hums sleepily and nuzzles again into her hair, Jane able to hear his deep intake of breath as he takes in her scent.

She rolls over to face him, not really able to see much in the dark room, but runs her hands along his chest in hopes to take his warmth and the feel of his plates shifting with each breath into memory. He lightly stokes his fingers against her waist where his hand came to settle, a soft purr rumbling from his chest.

As she feels his body move beneath her fingers, the thoughts of her dream drifting through her mind, her body starts to warm. She scoots her body closer to his, and stretches up the run her lips against his chin.

A little bit of information she had learned while searching for his injuries was that the skin of his chin leading to his neck was soft, so she had figured it would be sensitive. His responding shiver was a sign in the right direction, so she opened her lips and planted a kiss, creating a tiny suction before releasing. His tightening against her waist and quick pant was sign enough and she moved up on the bed so that she could have better access.

"Jane, are you sure?" He looks to her, searching her eyes, emitting that subvocal she can only feel in her belly and not hear. The question is a good one, he has given her plenty of space to work things out since her freak out and it wouldn't be right to relive that night again.

Tonight, though, she feels good and genuinely happy. Being here with him for this past almost two months was one of the best experiences of her life and he is one of the most important people in her life. She wants to share one more experience with him before leaving for N-training and she wants it so badly it sits like a deep ache in her belly. "I really want this with you, Garrus."

He doesn't question her again as she dives to his neck and under his chin, assaulting it with harsh nips and soothing kisses. His hands are not idle as they move under her shirt to stroke her breasts and pinch her nipples. He moans loudly at one particular hard bite with her teeth, and drags her leg over his, moving his own leg between hers.

She pulls back from his neck and moans at the friction he creates when he lifts the leg and pulls slightly on her leg, that stuttering purr or arousal filling the room. Before she can dive back into his sweet spots her claims her mouth, twisting his tongue with hers and pulling a moan from the both of them.

She runs her hands to the back of his neck, one hand digs fingers into the base of his fringe to message the nerves and the other moving to the crest itself to slip her fingers around the centermost at its base and giving a slight squeeze. He releases her mouth to gasp for breath and release it with a feral growl, diving down to her neck to assault the nerves that run along it.

He grinds roughly against her and nips more forcefully than he has before, and she moans at the intense pleasure, his rough tongue soothing the flesh sending a heat straight to her cunt. His ministrations have her already soaking her panties and neither of them have any clothes off, but she can't find the strength to pull away for even a second.

"Garrus," she moans, "we have to take off our damn clothes."

He growls, and her cunt betrays her again by responding with a flash of heat and a jerk against his leg. Returning her friction, he laves one long lick against her neck once before pulling back slightly to quickly divest himself of his clothing.

She can't even remember the two actually removing clothing or where the articles are thrown to, but she doesn't care as almost immediately she finds herself once again in Garrus' arms, head thrown back as he strokes the back of a knuckle against her heated center, the other hand stroking and plucking a nipple in time, and his hot mouth against her ear, purring and growling at her responses.

Coming enough to her senses to realize that she isn't getting nearly as involved, she moves her hand from the back of his neck up to the more sensitive sweet spot, and her other from around his wrist at her legs to his waist and squeezes and strokes.

Her actions seem to leave him just as senseless as she is because his rhythmic motions stutter and he moans into her ear, a low "Jane" barely distinguishable from his subharmonics. She turns her head to kiss him deeply before moving to pull his hand from between her legs.

She shifts to move over him and he silently understands her command, shifting to his back and hands coming to her hips as she throws a leg over his. His cock is already at full attention and glistens in the low orange light from his clock on the desk.

She strokes him once, coming to a rest around his larger base as he pants. She can't wait to see him writhing below her as she grinds against his alien curve and ridges. Before she moves to hover above him though, she has a strange vision from the porn vids pop into her head and she has to ask about it, damn her stupid curiosity.

"Garrus," his hazy eyes focus a bit at her change in voice, "I have a question." She strokes him once to make sure he doesn't start to think she is going to change her mind and leave him high and dry.

"You won't get a very good answer if you keep doing that," he smirks, his right mandible still bandaged.

"In the porn I watched, when the couple were really getting into it, the guy…how do I put it? He would flick his tongue out, almost like he was scenting the air. Is that normal?" She didn't really care, and if she had actually thought about it before sitting inches away from his hard dick and a crazy need in her pussy she definitely would have asked then.

"That's exactly what he's doing." He lifts his hips in an absentminded search for the friction she was teasing at with her hand against him. "Does it bother you?" He looks up to her and she shakes her head in the negative. "Good, because it's not really a conscious thought, just kind of instinct when it's really good."

She finds herself oddly turned out by the thought of getting Garrus so into it that he can't control his basic urges and silently lets him know by giving a firm stroke, to which he replies with a moan, and lifting up and over him.

Before she brings him into her though, she decides to prolong themselves, not knowing if he is the same as males of her species. Instead of taking him in, she lowers herself enough to circle her opening with his pointed tip, feeling his thicker, warmer lubricant against her folds to mix with her own.

He throws his head back in groan at the sensation, "You're so warm I can feel it radiating off you." He looks to her eyes, both green and blue bright and vivid despite being half lidded in lust and desire. "Come on, Jane," he growls with a slight thrust, not bringing him any closer than brushing against her folds again.

She takes him in hand and guides him so that she can envelope him slowly, his hands moving to help support her. As he slowly enters her, she feels his strange shape expand her walls as she moves down inch by inch.

Her hands move to his chest to hold her weight as she slowly reaches his base. The feeling of him inside her is indescribable. He isn't abnormally long or abnormally wide, but the combination of the two together is something she isn't used to from her previous experiences, it was either one or the other. The stretch isn't painfully either, in fact, it feels amazing to have such a tight fit between the two, as if he were special made to fit.

He groans and it causes a little flitter of her muscles. "You're so damn tight. Is good you're so wet or I'd never fit you." She smirks and grinds into him, drawing her own startled moan from her lips.

_Who knew the subtle forward curve and tiny ridges would make him able to hit every little sweet spot?_

Feeling as if her pussy had adjusted enough to his shape, she lifts on her knees, almost completely releasing him, and lowers back, repeating and picking up speed. She shamelessly moans to the ceiling as she feels the ridges and curves stroke her inner walls as she moves up and down, finding pleasure like never before in this new experience.

As she settles on a pace, she feels him returning thrusts as she comes down, forcing himself deeper as they come together and bring his opened pelvic plates against her clit. Her arms are starting to tremble and her breaths are stuttering as the combined sensations are quickly bringer her closer to the edge.

When he moves a hand from her hips up to her breast, his fingers pinching and plucking at her nipple, she feels the starts of the tremors in her belly. Her body jerks out of sync but he shifts to pull her chest to his, both hands taking hold of her hips.

In this position he can thrust hard and fast up into her and she is forced to just take the pounding which is fine as the muscles in her body start to clench in her attempt to hold out just a bit longer. She can hear his rumbling growl in her ear and feel his pants across the side of her face as she holds onto him.

His thrusts change from fast and quick to hard and deep as his cock pulses hard, the ridges feeling more prominent against her already fit to climaxing walls and he moves to lick against her sweat soaked skin, growling at her taste.

"Garrus," she moans, unable to think and losing the battle with her building orgasm. It's when he grips both of her cheeks hard in each hand and pulls her to grind against his body, a deep thrust combined with a hard stroke of plates against her clit, that she falls over the edge with a scream.

She is too lost in the pleasure of her orgasm that she doesn't realize that her cunt's spasms and tightening pull his own orgasm from him with a low moaned growl. It's as she's coming down that she feels his weak thrusts to milk the last of each of their pleasure and the thick fullness inside from his seed.

"Garrus," she says breathlessly and collapsed on his chest once his strokes quiet, "that was fucking amazing."

He chuckles, his secondary vocals starting to fade away to their normal pitch. He strokes a hand through her hair, "When do you have to leave? Because if it was so great I could offer you another round."

She snorts and looks up to him, "So you're telling me Turians have this amazing stamina that I don't know about?"

He tilts his head in confusion. "I thought humans can have multiple orgasms."

She laughs at his misguided research, "That myth only revolves around women. Human men only go once and then they are done."

"Your poor males, no wonder they are always so angry. Turians are the opposite I guess, a female only orgasms once but a male can go consecutively."

His response stuns her into silence, her mouth hanging open in astonishment. He looks down to her and strokes a hand through her hair in silent question. She shakes out of her shock and smirks up to him. "Hell, if I'd known that, I would've jumped a Turian much sooner."

He laughs and strokes her chin with a thumb. "I just thought it was the same with humans as Turians, the males go for multiple rounds and the females go once and then they get pretty cranky soon after. I never even had a female hold me in her until I retracted back into my plates on my own."

His statement brings to mind that that is in fact what they're doing, his cock rests within her ready for sign of continuation but slowly softening in the lack of stimulation. "Is that a big thing for Turians?" The concept isn't really that strange to her because she's sure that human couples probably did the same, as a part of the afterglow, but she never had a relationship deep enough to even cuddle let alone stay connected.

"It's a sign of trust." He shrugs. "Nothing like taking a girl home to meet the family, to put it in human vid terms, but enough to say that you don't just want someone for the quick pleasure you can get from their body."

She ponders on the concept and decides she kind of likes the added intimacy that being connected brings and, looking at the clock on his desk, if she had the time she would have definitely taken him up on the offer to go for another round. Sighing as she shifts up, blaming her for taking so long to get to this point, she looks down to Garrus with an apologetic lift of the side of her lips. "I'm sorry, I'd love to take you up on your offer and we could test to see who has the better stamina, but it's already early enough that I need to get clean, packed, and eat something before heading out."

Leaning up to her, Garrus purrs as he strokes his forehead against her own, nuzzling against her as he rumbles to tickle her belly. After caressing each other's heads, he tilts to give her a human style kiss, slow and sweet.

Reluctantly, she pulls her still weak body off of his, his cock pulling free with a slight escape of his cum. He growls softly at the sight, but hands her his discarded shirt from being tossed up on the headboard to clean herself enough so she can get up out of bed. "Don't worry about the bed, I can always wash it after you leave," he assures her.

She moves to the shower to start the day and mentally prepare herself to be leaving back for Earth and back to the Alliance. When she exits the shower all cleaned up and in her best clothes for the long journey, she finds that Garrus has ordered some breakfast delivered for the two of them to share a last time.

"I just remembered," Jane says around a bite of toast, "I don't have anywhere to leave my guitar. Shit." She curses, a fist in her hair as she quickly tries to come up with a last minute solution.

"Just leave it here," Garrus says around his warm Turian tea. "I certainly won't do anything to it, so it's safe here."

Jane's eyes brighten at the idea, "Are you sure? You won't mind it being in the way?"

He quirks his left mandible out, "It takes up less space than this table does and you didn't even ask about bringing it in."

She mock glares, "You like this table, you ass. Besides, you need somewhere to work on that visor of yours and all your other _important calibrations_."

"You say calibrations like I use that word all the time." He relaxes back into his chair, "when you're the one who has said it more than me."

"Only to talk about you," she smirks back, taking one last look at the smart ass cop with the crystal blue eyes, dark blue colony marks, and bright, glowing blue visor that she finds herself falling so deep for before taking off to Earth for who knows how long in training.


	34. Chapter 34

~Garrus~

The next four months for them entail Jane's final stages of planetside training on Earth and the end of the probationary period of Garrus working under another detective before being able to take cases on his own.

In that time, he grows close to his superior officer, Chellick, learning that past his strict work ethic, the man is experienced and willing to assist Garrus as he rises up the ranks. He doesn't seem to share his and Jane's fun attitude, but he doesn't belittle Garrus' efforts like his dad often did.

Jane, though she was usually exhausted and not much for communications, sends a message at least one a day. Sometimes it is simply to ask how is dad was and see how he's _managing without her pleasant company_ and other times their conversations get a little more intimate.

She admits that due to her long days, she doesn't dream and isn't having nightmares. He is happy to hear that she isn't reliving the pain, but he knows that their absence was only due to exhaustion and not resolution but says nothing.

He wants her to be able to forgive herself for surviving Akuze and realize that her squad's deaths weren't her fault, if he could, he would gladly help her carry the burden. It is always her choice though, and his only option until then is to be there and wait until she trusts him enough to share her pain.

His heart jumps every time she writes of how much she misses him, both for his friendly company and nightly embraces. He still hasn't found the courage to tell her of his deeper feelings, fearing that to do so would raise up her walls that have gradually begun to chip away and fall at his feet. If what they have never moves forward to what he so desperately craves, then he will gladly give her whatever she will take from him.

Admitting that fact to himself makes him flabbergasted at his own foolishness. The feelings he is having are only things in sappy romance movies and tales, certainly not something that happens between two completely different people with lives in the reality.

He had only ever heard of someone being so infatuated with another that their chest rumbled involuntarily in love by the mere thought of them. This idea of your body knowing before your own mind what it wanted was so unbelievable that it couldn't possibly exist outside of fantasy, but here he was, finding himself purring deeply just by reading her messages of missing him.

_Oh, how much easier this situation would be if Jane were Turian enough to understand my subharmonics. She could save me from this internal embarrassment._

Garrus now finds himself sitting at his apartment, home from work and anxiously bouncing his leg waiting for Jane to arrive. She had messaged him the night before that she would be arriving on the Citadel for a short layover before being taken by ship out to start her off-planet training and expected to spend it in his company if he would have her. He had admitted, _stupidly_, that he couldn't think of anything else better to do with his time.

With that is mind, she had pinged him about an hour before now to say that her transport was on schedule and entering the Citadel's docking, so she should be coming through his door any minute. With that in mind, he pushes this mess of his fanatical heart to the back of his mind in hopes that he doesn't seem distracted during their short time together.

Hearing the whirring noise of his door lock, he stands just as it opens with a swish to reveal Jane, a bit tired looking but with a bright smile on her lips and shining in her eyes. She steps across the threshold, the door closing, and dropping her duffle to the floor as he comes around the couch. A spark flashes between their connected eyes and they rush to each other.

At the touch of her body to his, he instinctively leans down, his long arms wrapping around her tiny body, and she raises on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck and on the inside crevice of his cowl. He straightens with her in his hold, making her little feet lift from the ground and pulling a lighthearted laugh from her throat.

"I missed you, Garrus, you ugly bastard," she jokes against his neck and he chuckles from her words and the feeling of her breath against his sensitive hide. She trails quick, closed mouthed kisses up his neck, across his mandible, and coming to rest at his lip plates, where he reciprocates with pressure, purring in happiness and love.

"I missed you too, Jane," he says once she pulls back to give his forehead a more subdued nuzzle. The look in her green eyes makes him wish so deeply for the strength to tell her his earlier thoughts, but alas, his courage fails him. Instead, he tries to pull away with levity. "I kept your guitar safe while you were gone."

She laughs and he drops her back to stand on the ground, but instead of pull from him, she moves her arms to wrap around him just above his sensitive waist. He holds her close around her upper arms in response. "Thanks, though I'm sad to say that I won't get to actually check the truth of that statement with how little time I have." She smirks up and him with one brow raised, "I think I'd like to spend that time in a much more_productive_ manner."

He hums deep in his throat, one hand shifting to caress against her neck and cheek, "I like where this is going."

Just as quickly as their meeting starts in the happy mood, her smile drops and she looks deeply into his eyes. He is about to ask what he said wrong when she gives him a sad half smile. "Garrus, where are we going with this?"

He steps back in confusion, still in her arms but more able to look her straight in the eyes and not towering over her so much. "What do you mean?"

She looks away and shrugs softly, "I got word that I will be in space training for a very long time. More precisely, I'm going to be away and training for around fifteen months. I'd get time off for leave, but it would only be to a base or Alliance station, I won't be given the option to come all the way to the Citadel." She looks up to him and the look in her sad eyes sends a deep ache to his chest. "Should we even bother with this?"

He hopes that the words from her mouth aren't what he fears he's hearing and silently chants and begs her in his head not to give up, not to stop before he's found the courage to tell her the extent of his feelings. Before he can force his mouth to open and protest, she continues. "I've always heard that long distance relationships never work, and that's when it's with humans. What's going to happen with us, as two different species?

"I'd love to keep this going, but I don't want to fuck up the good thing we had before screwing it up by getting into bed together. Do you want to just call this off and not ruin our friendship with trying to maintain a fucking relationship?"

Her eyes search his, seeming to beg him to make the decision, to be the moving force to help her through her indecision. His heart beats against his carapace, screaming to fight for this, to fight for what they are just barely building and not give in to doubt.

Taking her chin in hand he raises her head so that their eyes can connect, his avian blues focusing her beautiful emeralds, "Nothing will change the friendship we have. This," he motions to their close bodies, "is something we both want so badly." She nods in agreement to his statement, more to herself it seems. "We should give it a try, screw the fears and what you've heard. If anyone can do this _long-distance relationship thing_, it's us. We've been through quite the hell together."

She stares up to him, her breath held, seeming to listen to some internal debate, before taking a deep inhale and releases it slowly. "I'd like that," she admits with a soft smile, "I'd like that a hell of a lot."

He hums and leans down, pulling her chin up to meet his lips. He nips against her soft flesh of her lips and she gasps as he breathes in, taking her breath in to taste. Her distinct flavor ghosts over his tongue and he purrs, moving his hand to the back of her hair to twist in her hair as he flicks his tongue against her upper lip, still outside her mouth but with the hint of a tease.

She gasps again and strokes against his mandibles, her light touches sparking his nerves to send little shocks down his body and his mouth to water to heighten his senses. Not able to keep up this angle of leaning to her, he pulls back with despite her small groan of displeasure. He chuckles and nudges her back as their hands begin to explore, leading her to the table he had unknowingly acquired and that he has come to love just as much as Jane herself because she bought it.

She hits the edge and looks back to it with a startled expression, she must not have really noticed him softly edging her back. She smirks up to him once his intentions finally click. He wants her too bad to make it to the bedroom and by her forceful fisting and pulling of his shirt to bring his body against hers, she shares the sentiment.

He growls at the intent of her demand, and dips his head to her mouth to tangle with her delicious tongue as she shifts to lean her weight against the table and gain a little extra height. As she uses that sweet suction against his tongue, his pelvic plates shift open with stuttering growl and a flood of blood rushes from his head down his belly.

He lifts her shirt, pulling it quickly up over her head and tosses it off somewhere. The movement brings the fact that his shirt is looser that before, and he quickly looks down in surprise to find that she has snapped open the clasps of his shirt. Their eyes meet with matching smirks and they both move to their own remaining tops to remove them.

Now with both of them bare from the hips up, his crouches, grabbing behind her thighs and pulling her up to the table. If he had the mind to, he would bring up the fact that he just heard what sounded an awful lot like a giggle, but his mind blanks of any smart comment when her glorious legs wrap around his waist and squeeze.

He moans shamelessly and his cock pulses inside its sheath, his fluids starting to build in response. He returns her heavy chuckle by moving a hand to her breast and the other to the back of her head to force it to the side so he can assault her neck. Her hands shoot straight to his sensitive neck sides and back with a moan as he flicks her nipple and swipes his rough tongue against her skin.

He can taste the sweet scent of her arousal in her musky sweat and he groans as he feels his cock slip out with an uncontrollable hip jerk, his fluids soaking the front of his pants. He moves his hand away from her hair and runs it down to her cunt, feeling her own desires soaking her clothes as she moans to his touch.

"Garrus," she pants, unable to string together any more complex sentences and drops her hands to the front of his pants. Her fingers stroke against his straining erection and groans into her neck, jerking uncontrollably once in expectation of her delicate hand around his flesh.

Wanting nothing more than to be deeply buried inside her tight pussy, he grabs her wrist and shoves her hand to her own pants in a silent order to undress herself. He then releases her when she shifts her hips off from around him to remove his own pants hurriedly.

He gets naked before she completely gets unclothed, benefits of not having boots on when she showed up, and takes advantage to tease her, one hand on her breast and the other dipping down to her dripping center.

She squirms at his idle circling of her clit and moans with desperation, "Garrus, you prick. Help me," she whines, "please."

Taking pity on her desperate situation, he chuckles and moves his hands to less sensitive places on her cunt and breast, to which she huffs, either in exasperation from his insistence to tease or from the lesser stimulation. "Do you have more pants?" he leans his head close to her ear and speaks, her shiver to his breath pulling a growl from his lips.

She nods fiercely, her hands still on her clothes as she is absorbed in his teasing. With no further assurance or making sure she even comprehended, Garrus moves his hand from her cunt to the crotch of her pants, gripping it firmly and giving one hard tug, his talons making short work of the material and panties.

She gasps and her arousal spikes, _a note to add to the list for later_, and her pants are now in two pieces, one hanging limping out from the opening in her remaining shoe and the other falling from her unbooted foot to the ground.

Without a second thought, Garrus moves back into her embrace and her legs return to wrap gloriously around his waist and rest upon his hip spurs. He moves to her ass and pulls her to the edge of the table, licking her neck and purring as she takes him in hand.

She strokes once up him and squeezes lightly against his heavy base causes him to jerk in her fist in silent order to hurry the hell up. He can take a little teasing, but why hold off when the real thing is so much better?

Jane squeezes his thighs against him and pulls him ever closer to her body, their heats radiating into each other. It is then that he feels the sweet heat of her cunt around his pointed tip, and her sweet fluids coating and mixing with his own as he slowly pushes forward when she releases his base, giving him the lead.

He takes it slow to not hurt her with his different shape, but even the slow entering doesn't affect the sheer pleasure of her tight, wet heat wrapping around him. Fitting flush to his every curve and ridge as he stretches her, making her fit him with a tight seal. A deep, rumbling moan erupts from his throat and she exhales a breathy, high moan as he pushes flush.

Unlike her, he doesn't stop at that and instead he slowly pulls back out, stopping just as the tip of his head rests within her folds. On her light inhale, he pushes fully back in and her mouth drops open in a silent moan, her eyes closing. He pulls back out, relishing in the facial reactions of his sensitive ridges running along her inner walls, and pushes in with more force, making her breasts bounce with a hard thrust at the end.

He starts up a pace of long, fast thrusts once he's sure she's used to his shape, holding one leg around his waist and stroking one of her nipples, and she doesn't settle to sit idle as she pulls with her legs and hands on his ass. Each time he pushes in, she thrusts hard to him, pulling him deeper and gasping as his plates hit her sensitive button.

Her breath starts to stutter and her motions get jerkier as he too feels himself coming closer to the edge. Soon, she merely pulls him close and moves her hands to his waist and fringe to grip hard and demands, "Harder. Deeper. Faster. Garrus."

He growls, unable to produce any sort of civilized language over his lustful subvocals, dropping his head against her chest, and changes his pace to appease their desires. He pulls her to him with a hand around her waist and drops his other to their joining to circle roughing around her swollen clit.

The sight of his swollen, blue cock sliding into her red cunt sends him into the first stages of his orgasm, his ridges flaring up and blood pulsing to the edge of pain, and his thrust becoming uneven. His subtle changing in shape pushes her into her own climax, as she screams breathlessly as her walls grips him hard, seeming to squeeze the life from him.

With one last plunge deep into her, his orgasm hits full force as he fills her with a long, low growled groan, his hips jerking shallowly to try and pull out every sensation of their joining. Seeming to gain a bit of coherency, Jane strokes the back of his neck softly gasping each time he surges to fill her with more of his seed. Feeling his body finally pass over the threshold of too much stimulation and stop cuming, he sighs, deeply sated and raises his head to the sight of a beautifully flushed Jane.

He feels a sweet ache in his chest at the sight and smiles, pushing a strand of hair from her face to behind her ear. She returns his smile and pulls his head down for a long kiss, tender and not laced with frantic desire. Her kiss feels like something more than simple friends finding pleasure in each other, but he can't question her when she draws back and rubs her head against his with a dejected sigh.

"What's wrong, Jane," he caresses her cheek, looking deep into her eyes while softly stroking against her forehead with his own.

"I'm expected to head back to the docks soon for mandatory roll call." She mirrors him and strokes along one mandible. "Though I'd love you try you for round two." Despite his every intention not to, his cock jerks inside her at the statement. Before he can curse himself, she laughs, "And it seems like you'd like that too."

He smiles and pulls from her, removing himself from the wet pleasure in case he started to get too worked up to have to need a cold shower.

He had never had a female let him when to choose to pull from her body even though they were as good as done for the day. Though he had told Jane that it was important in his culture, he doesn't think she realizes that it's more than just trust in someone you care for. This kind of trust is something that bondmates share, something that his stupid romantic heart so desperately wanted her to know, but he was too afraid to actually explain.

Deciding that it's best not to bring up this little nuisance given her previous fears, he offers his hand to help her up and off of the table. She stands on unsteady legs and looks down to her shredded clothing, her brows raising in surprise.

He laughs at the image of Jane with one boot on and her demolished pant leg hanging loosely from where it is tucked into the top. "I sure hope you were right when you said you had another pair."

She mock scowls, "I'd sure hope so. I wouldn't want to walk up the Alliance butt ass naked saying," she straightens her stance, bringing her heels together, and throws her hand up in a human salute, "'Sorry, Sir, I got jumped by a very impatient Turian and he tore off my pants. I won't let it happen again.'" The two laugh as they search for where they happened to throw their remaining clothes.

By the time they dress and she slips into a new pair of underwear and pants, they barely have enough time to share a quick meal before she is called in to report. They kiss slowly and with more emotion than either cares to bring up.

As he walks her to the waiting cab transit, their outward appearance doesn't betray to strangers their deep feelings they share. If anyone were to look at them, they would just seem like friendly comrades seeing each other off and that's just the way they like it.


	35. Chapter 35

~Jane~

Fifteen months, fifteen long months.

Since being told that the events of Akuze had gained her a recommendation into the Alliance's N program, she has been constantly fighting to prove to that same confidence in herself. In her opinion, Akuze was not something to be commended on but just sheer luck at work, not the proof that she was a good soldier.

A good soldier was able to bring back their subordinates, those who trusted in their leadership, their orders, to succeed in a mission and bring them home. Though she wasn't the commander of the mission when they were first given the orders of investigating, circumstances had left her at the top of the chain of command and she should have be ready and able to get her people out.

Perhaps that was the reason for her dreams, for her hatred of herself for surviving. She didn't suffer from the dreams here, during training, but she knew it was only because of the fact that her days were tiring and her body was so exhausted that she was out like a light the moment she hit the pillow.

Now though, she knows she has earned her new rank of N7. It was by her own determination, blood, sweat, and tears, and solely her own. She had gone through the same hellish training as every other marine in the Interplanetary Combatives Training, those who succeeded and those unable to go on, and now truly feels the rank is deserved. Her confidence shows as they pin the N7 rank to her formal uniform during her graduation ceremony.

Before her official time off to recover from training and rest up before her first position as her new rank, she attends a small gathering on the Citadel. The Alliance holds a party of sorts to congratulate the newest N7s and to allow higher members of the military to offer them certain positions available under their command. Admirals and Captains, even older N7s, all attend with hopes of meeting and getting a chance to gauge each new graduate's qualities to see which would be suit their needs.

During the evening, Jane is approached by a tall man in a Captain's uniform. It is as she stands straight at his approach with a respectful nod that she sees a N7 insignia, along with many other prestigious awards, on his uniform. "Captain," she greets respectfully.

A smile crosses his worn, but wise, face. "At ease, Commander Shepard, this is supposed to be a celebration, not an inspection."

She relaxes her stance and nods in understanding. She now recognizes the individual, Captain David Anderson, one of the Alliance's most decorated soldiers and the first N7. "It's an honor, Sir," he offers his hand and she takes it with a firm shake.

"Honor's all mine, really," he dismisses. "I've been speaking with your fellow graduates, like everyone else here really, trying to see what the next steps for many of you are." He motions for Jane to walk with him, "All of you are all exemplary and all have earned the ranks you are, so tell me, what are your plans? Do you plan to take an offer for staying planetside or are you more interested in a space posting?"

Jane understands the Captain's questions, he is trying to gauge which of the newest N7s is fit for a certain position he has or may know of without outright stating what it is. Whether it is because he doesn't wish to have that change the original opinion or because it is for a more classified reason, she doesn't know but she knows it as the same tactic all the other officers have been using all night.

"I'm open to either option, Sir, but I tend to enjoy being in the action, whether than means I get placed on a planet with a lot of activity or on a ship with constant deployments. So long as I can get my hands dirty." Her whole life she has been active, not moving or accomplishing anything left her anxious.

He laughs, "I guess that's the same with us all when we're young. I noticed from your exercises that you tended to take the lead in almost all instances."

She nods, "Yes, Sir. I saw a way to accomplish our goals so I spoke up, took charge, and lead us through the courses. I never pushed someone from the lead, but I didn't just follow when I thought something was a bad call, I spoke up."

He is quiet, seeming to contemplate her words. She knows that her attitude of the matter has already pissed a few of the people she has spoken to already, but she can't seem to force herself to just stick to being quiet. She has always been outspoken, but she has never questioned without cause, not since she fell in line on Akuze. That mission has taught her that succeeding in the mission is better than gaining a rank by kissing ass.

Finally, Captain Anderson nods and turns to Jane to face her fully, "Thank you, Commander. It was a pleasure to get a chance to speak with you, I'm confident you will do the N7s proud." They shake hands once more before he takes his leave and Jane is left to converse once again with any superior who approaches for an informal interrogation.

Once the night starts to become late and the last of the officers have taken to either talking amongst themselves or returning to their own duties, Jane finds it an appropriate time to excuse herself.

She can't wait to get to a bed somewhere and just collapse into sweet oblivion after so long of not sleeping well. In a way, she's a bit worried she may not know how to sleep like a normal person anymore, but she figures that'll be a problem she'll be happy to test the solutions for.

In thinking of a normal bed, her thoughts start to drift to something else that she has desperately missed the time she's been gone, Garrus. Garrus Vakarian, her best friend and one person in the galaxy she feels so deeply connected to that it scares her.

During training, she would sometimes get a short chance of coming into the reach of communications. In those small windows of opportunity she would send as many short messages to him as she could and receive just as many from him in return. Often their conversations were not synchronized due to time frames, but each would rely the events of their days, even their idle thoughts, anything to just have the chance to communicate.

The one thing that remained constant were the messages of how they missed the other, their company even when only lying in bed together or the memories of how their bodies came together in a harmony that shouldn't be possible. She couldn't believe that the first time she had ever found herself in a relationship with someone she both valued as a friend and for the bodily pleasure they could offer, let alone the fact that they could be so far apart for so long and still find herself just as attached.

Her training did more than just give her confidence in the field, it gave her the confidence to finally admit to herself that she is in love with the Turian detective. She could no longer deny the intense flopping in her stomach when his messages piled into her Omni-Tool, or the ache when she thought of how long it was that she had last seen him, heard his beautiful two-toned voice, or felt his warm plates and hide beneath her fingers.

She had almost been caught by one of her fellow recruits when she found herself able to sketch him from memory. All of her previous drawings had been from a direct reference and she could never imagine the subject in order to draw, except for the one thing she found she could always draw by memory, a Thresher Maw. She thinks it may have been something to do with the fact that she never really connected to any other person, whether in her public sketchbook or more private one.

That had been a tense situation as she tried to downplay being caught in the act, and the only thing that saved her was that she hadn't gotten to his more _intimate qualities_. She merely explained that she was remembering their alien anatomy lessons from earlier in the day and her fellow soldier took the diversion with a shrug.

Shaking off the memory, Jane sends a message to Garrus to see if he was available. It was late in the night and she didn't want to just barge into his apartment in any case, let alone when he may be asleep. She had told him about the gathering earlier when he had asked her itinerary, but didn't have a time frame so she hoped that she wouldn't have to wait until tomorrow to meet up.

She sends a quick ping, "Hey, I just got done. Sorry it took so long. You awake?"

The speed at which he responds shocks her, but she also forgets that she doesn't have to send pings across a galaxy and through communication transits. "I'm awake, but I'm not home. I have to finish working up a case I'm on. Go ahead and head to the apartment and make yourself at home."

She smiles at his response, a lighter feeling in her chest now that she has actually admitted her feelings to herself. _Still haven't said anything to him about those feelings, but I'll get there._ "It's been 15 months and you blow me off for a case? So underappreciated…" she jokes as she makes her way to a cab to take it to the hotel room to pick up her things before heading to his place.

"Will bringing food make it up to you? My table has been so empty without you," he responds and she has to hold back the laugh at the image that pops up from his message.

With that image in mind, she pings back, "You might want to think about that statement."

"I know what I said." She is glad that no one is actually manning the cab because the giggle that escapes her lips is easier to deny without someone else hearing it. Before she can think up a response he sends another message. "So…food?"

"You know the way to a biotic girl's heart." She sends her reply and exits the cab to get her things, returning moments later to go to his apartment, the one place that feels more like home than anywhere else she can think of.

When she arrives to his apartment, she opens the door with her Omni-Tool access and walks in to find it just the same as it was fifteen months ago. She huffs a quiet laugh at the simplistic way Garrus keeps his apartment, how he keeps it so organized that it looks like a showroom, like no one lives here, and wonders if that's a Turian trait or just something completely Garrus.

The only thing that stands out from the normal is her table, the old wooden antique she is happy to see hasn't made its way into the trash. When she had bought it, it was a completely impulsive buy and she hadn't really thought about where to even keep it. Upon finding that Garrus had plenty of room, she had no second thoughts before shoving it against the wall while he worked. Of course, she had been completely honest when she told him that if he didn't like it he could get rid of it, but deep down she had to admit that she secretly wanted him to take it as a gift.

Walking to the table to run her hand across its pockmarked surface, she stops at the package and note sitting directly in the center. Picking up the note, it's written in a Turian script, so she runs it under her Tool to translate, figuring if Garrus didn't want her to see it, he probably shouldn't have left it sitting like some kind of offering.

As it translates, she finds herself smiling at the words he clearly meant for her. "Jane, figured you're going to get bored during your long time off on the Citadel. Here's something to help you pass the time."

She sets the note aside and picks up the package. It is the size of a datapad, though a bit thicker and with more weight and a denser feel to it. Around it is a brown paper that reminds her of the packing paper mailing used to use on Earth in the poorer neighborhoods. The paper is simply folded so that it covers whatever is inside and she easily pulls it away and off, to reveal what he had gotten her.

Lying in her hand is a new sketchbook, bound by a thick string at the left and with a tanned leather cover and backing. She sets the wrapping paper down to open the pages to thick parchment, cream in appearance and with clearly visible grain. It looks like every part of it was handmade with expert craftsmanship and Jane can't believe the price he must have spent on it. Flipping the book over between her hands to rub against the leather, she doesn't even think she wants to ruin its beauty by drawing in it.

Taking the sketchbook and its accompanying note, Jane moves to pick up her duffle bag and take her things out of the living room and into the bedroom to change. She concludes that the first thing she's going to do during her newfound time off is look up just how to read a Turian. That way, she isn't going in completely blind when she tells him her feelings.

~I may be sporadic for the next week or so as I have to have a small surgery. I have not abandoned this, I am just recovering, so please be patient.


	36. Chapter 36

~_SquigglySquid_ says: I'm home now and on the road to recovery from my surgery, so I am back to writing as it helps to keep me occupied while I heal up.~

~Jane~

The surroundings of Akuze fade into focus as Jane finds herself running to a distance rescue. She is no longer too afraid to realize her cause of these dreams, and she finds that a part of her is no longer as guilty for surviving.

_This is a dream. I can change things, I'm not defenseless._ She can never bring her squad back, but she can damn well teach her dreams that she has paid enough for living past this hell.

Her power becomes less a force of routine out of her control and she grits her teeth, her biotics flaring, as she fights herself for control. Her feet stutter to a stop and she hears the footsteps of Jameson come closer than they had ever been in reality, but she can't stop to think about it as she finds herself battling her dream's control.

Folded in on herself, she groans at the feeling of fighting a tide, the steps of Jameson nearly at her side and she knows what's coming soon, she has to gain the upper hand before the inevitable. She fists her hands, clinches her eyes shut, and she feels her biotics pulse as her body heats up with the building energy.

She starts to feel a strange sensation in her belly like a heavy gravity pulling her downward from inside and she fights to keep on her feet. Then, suddenly, the force releases her, though not by dissipating, but by shooting straight from her feet and up and out of her body, forcing her head to through back in a cry and her biotics to flood from her body and out in a spherical shockwave.

When she comes back to herself, she finds that she has complete control over her body as she examines her hands, rolling them over at a loss. She's never taking control of her dream self, she has always just felt like some helpless observer, meant to do more than feel the pain and relive the mistakes.

She is pulled quickly from her astonishment by a coughing from a bit to her left. She looks over in shock and sees Jameson working to pick himself up off the ground, seeming to have been in the blast of her biotics. He looks up to Jane confused, but she is proud to see that this version of him is like she remembered, young and full of life.

"Is everything okay, ma'am?" he asks, his eyes wide and searching the field before them as she offers her hand to help him to his feet. "Did you see it?" He readies his gun, nearly out of ammo to the area lying between their position and their only way off this planet.

"No, Jameson," he looks to her with a silent question in his eyes, but she knows him, _the real him_, to know that he would never openly question. "Change of plans," his brows shoot up and he takes in a quick gasp, but she continues as is he hadn't spoken, not knowing how much longer before their dreaded attack will happen. "You will take the lead. Don't bother with your gun," she takes it and tosses it to the ground along with her own, "put your damn helmet on, and run like hell to that extraction point. Don't you dare stop or slow down for anything, not to look back and, sure as hell, not to give me help." She grabs the front of his chest armor and drags his taller height down to meet her eyes, "And when I yell at you to drop to the ground to roll to the side," she bumps her own armor to his and growls, "_you fucking drop or roll_. Do I make myself clear, Ensign?"

He looks to her with shock, and a bit of fear. She wasn't this demanding during Akuze, but she can't complain of her N7 training rubbing off. "Yes ma'am," he shakily salutes and she has to bite her cheek to keep from smiling.

She can't dwell on how she misses him as she feels the subtle vibrations beneath her feet signaling the beginning of the true test of her new found courage. Jameson's eyes widen in true fear and she shoves him towards the shadowy shuttle in the distance, using a bit of biotics to move him further, and takes off at his six.

Her feet pound the ground as each step bringing Jameson before her and herself closer to their salvation. Her stomps seem to match so perfectly to the Maw's tunneling vibrations that each step sends shockwaves up her spine to rattle in her head. With each step closer, her anxiety rises, but instead of chilling her in fear, her blood runs hot with angered determination. _I will get us on that God damn shuttle, even if it's a fucking dream I will safe at least one person, even if it kills me!_

She charts the growing vibrations beneath her feet and counts the seconds, straining to listen for the trademark sounds of the ground breaking up from the beast surfacing with a loud screech and the sharp inhale of breath as it prepares for its attack. She has had this memory play in her dreams for so long that she knows the timing of the Thresher Maw's attacks almost as well as her own biotics and shotgun.

Jameson is just within reach of the shuttle when she hears it, the dreaded sounds that still haunt her after so many years, and she screams just as it inhales, "Now, drop and roll!" She has just a split second during her own body following her command to notice that Jameson has done as she ordered without hesitance, and the two both find themselves dodging the acid as it flies past their positions, just barely missing.

She has no time to stew in her achievement before her own instincts pull her body to her feet and quickly over to Jameson, all but flinging him in the air to get him to his feet. He takes off towards the shuttle as soon as his feet hit the dirt and within seconds he is in the shuttle, hand hanging out to haul her in.

She outstretches her hand, fingers just outside his grasp, before she stumbles on something at her feet, falling to the hard ground on hands and knees. "Fuck!" she curses and throws herself to her feet, but something draws her attention away from the safety of the shuttle and she turns to look at the thing she all but landed on, despite her every internal battle against it.

Her lungs constrict, forming a breathless gasp, and her blood drains completely from her face, down her body, and flows from her feet at the sight of a crumpled body before her. She knows this shape, but his presence is impossible, he isn't supposed to be here.

"Garrus!," she screams, her voice sounding weak and breaking half way through his name. She abandons Jameson's outstretched hand and the promise of ending this nightmare on her own terms, as she rushes to Garrus' motionless body.

Before she even reaches him, she can smell the one thing she never wanted to ever associate with the man she loves, the smell of melting plastic and flesh, with a newer scent that she only remembers from those marines who had been burned to the bone. She collapses at his side, her vision blurry with what she doesn't immediately recognize as tears that pour down her cheeks to flow off the angle of her chin. "Garrus, talk to me," she pleas as she takes his shoulder to roll him to his back so she can look at him, to see what horrors her mind has chosen to torture her with despite the voice in her head screaming not to.

The entire right side of his face doesn't even resemble his natural plates anymore. Instead, his plates look like they had liquefied and melted from his flesh, his mandible half dissolved and leaving dark blue, blistering flesh from above his eye socket and down his neck to bleed into his dissolving blue armor. She clutches at him with sobbing shrieks, her body jerking uncontrollably as she tries to will herself awake, to force herself from this nightmare that's worse than she can possibly imagine, while she begs and pleas unintelligibly for him to wake, to not let this happen.

With a violent jerk, he gasps from against her shoulder where she pulled his body in any attempt to bring him back. She quickly pulls back to look to him, to see if she really isn't hearing things. _Please don't let this really be happening, please Garrus don't do this._

His eyes look to her, the one crystal blue, and still intact, behind the frantic display of his visor and the black pit that once held the matching eye that has now dissolved away into nothing. "Jane," he barely forms the words through the blood that splatters from his dissolving face. "You can't save us both. You have to let go." Her eyes widen in shocked confusion, shaking slightly as she frantically tries to piece together both his words and some miracle to use on him.

"Please, Garrus," she cries as his eye starts to lose focus, "help me, tell me what to do. Don't leave," she pulls him to her chest, his head coming to lie against her shoulder again, "I can't live without you, Garrus." She can't hear his breath at her ear anymore.

She screams, the pain worse than the memories of her burns, the acid as it ate at her, and she sobs into his growing cold flesh, repeating, "I love you. I love you. I love you."

She doesn't notice the vibrations that echo through the ground into her wracking body and she relishes the blissful release that will come as the Maw surfaces and throws its head back, aiming at her and Garrus' limp body in her arms.


	37. Chapter 37

~Garrus~

Garrus got home in the early hours of the morning, having been kept at an impasse with his current case before finally giving up and heading home for some rest.

Just as his hands rose to the pressure release of his chest plate when the wailing cry from his bedroom stopped his hands in their motion. He immediately gave up his pretense for getting comfortable to rush to Jane's anguished screams.

She had been staying at his apartment for the past week and the most suffering she was having from her ever present dreams was some tossing and mumbling under her breath. He had hoped that the nights of her screaming awake were long gone, but as he rushed to her panicked form sitting straight up with eyes unfocused, his chest rumbled in pain at his foolish optimism.

"Jane, it's okay. Wake up." He grabs the sides of her face, purring soothingly, and takes it as a small victory that her eyes focus on his faster than she has ever done before.

Her shoulders slump and he lets his hands slide down to her shoulders as her eyes dash across his face, seeming to search for something. "Garrus," she sobs suddenly, grasping against the plates against the right side of his face and neck.

Without warning or a chance for him to question, she pulls him closer roughly, and plants wet, sloppy kisses along the right of his face. She moves from the tip of his mandible, along its surface, up his cheek plates, along the softer hide of his eyelid, and up over his brow. He knows that the wetness that flows across her cheeks and the jagged fear that is so uncharacteristic of her can only mean that the nightmare she has just woken from isn't of the norm, but it also means he has no clue how to comfort her. All he can do is rub along her back with one hand and purr comfortingly while she attends to her frantic assurances.

When she covers his plates with all of her unsaid emotions, she pulls back enough to lay her forehead against the right side of his head, her eyes closed. "You're okay, oh God, you're okay," she says cryptically.

He pulls back so that he can look into her eyes, bloodshot and red rimmed from her crying. "Of course I'm okay. Jane, what's wrong?" He doesn't know how to respond in any other way to seeing her so broken, in so much pain, because he doesn't even know what the cause is. The other thing he can think of doing is to place his hand against the side of her cheek and stroke at the falling tears. She presses against his palm and he can't help the bass rumbling in his chest of love and devotion.

"I need to come clean with you, Garrus." She casts her eyes down, "This can either screw everything up or make things easier for us, but I can't live like this anymore." His heart drops at her words and the rumbling in his chest stutters to a sudden stop. _Please don't say you want to end this, Jane_ he silently begs her, too afraid to speak his fears.

Jane doesn't seem to notice the sudden chill in his veins or the sudden tense of his body. "I don't want this to stay like it is," she looks to his eyes, her emerald orbs wet with her unshed pain. "I can't just let this stay at friends and fuck buddies. I need to know where we stand."

She laughs once, a sort of manic sound that scares him, "I looked up things, but the extranet fucking sucks so I can't be sure what it really means, so I have to just ask you outright." She grabs his face with her hands along each mandible and searches his eyes, "What do you want from what we have between us?"

_How am I supposed to answer that?_ He wishes this conversation wasn't happening right after rushing to her side as she woke screaming from a nightmare that seems to have been something completely different from the ones she suffered from before. Could he really answer her with the truth and possibly suffer from her rejection? Could he not say anything and risk losing the thought of what could have been?

Before he can force himself to answer, Jane sighs and continues as if not expecting an answer in the first place, "I want something more, Garrus. I don't want to just be a nice lay during our time off. I want to be something more for you."

Her fingers caress along his mandibles soothingly and he can't stop the bass rumble in his chest or the feeling of his heart beating against his plates. He can barely fight his subharmonics back enough to be able to speak and his voice comes out strange in his own ears. "I want that too, Jane. You have no idea how much I want something more with you."

For the first time since tonight, she smiles, still with a sadness behind her eyes, but it's a step away from the frightened woman Garrus found in his bed. "I've been trying so hard to find the courage to tell you this, but the entire time I've been away from you, you've been all I could think of. I've never found myself unable to get someone out of my head." She huffs a soft laugh, "I mean, it's not like I had to time to go sleeping around, but even if I did, I never found myself wanting anyone but you to share my bed." Her smile softens, "I know we never said anything about only being with each other and I never expected that from you..."

Understanding that Jane tended to ramble when she was treading into uncomfortable territory of emotions and feelings, Garrus interrupts her. "Since we've started sleeping together, I haven't taken another into my bed." It was true that they hadn't defined their relationship and usually he wouldn't have found it odd for either of them to have other partners, but for him, his heart and mind were set the moment his subharmonics began to sing that one uncontrollable song.

His words seems to sooth her rushing thoughts and she rests her forehead against his own, smiling at the feeling she must get of his singing bass harmonics. "I love you, Garrus," she says so softly as her green eyes bore into his own blue.

He swallows thickly and fights against the sudden loss of his voice. He purrs a deep bass note that sings with more emotion and love than he can ever hope to put into words, but he rubs his plates against her skin and tries, "I love you too, Jane."

She exhales a huff of a laugh in relief, "You don't know how happy I am to know I didn't make a complete fool of myself."

He chuckles and pulls back a bit with a smirk, "You make a fool of yourself? Never." He knows that her statement is an attempt to lighten the heavy pressure that has settled over them, and though he can't complain about what said tension has brought to the surface, he knows she doesn't like feeling so exposed. The two of them never seemed like the kind of people to sit and go into deep philosophical conversations.

"Well, if I found myself reading my best friend wrong, then I guess I would have to admit I'm not at good at gauging people as I thought," she tilts her head, her eyes silently thanking him for lightening the mood. "That would mean that my person skills would only involve my fists and shotgun." He shakes his head with a mandible flick and she takes his hand, the lighter mood dissipating a bit. "So, what are we now? Boyfriend and Girlfriend?" she asks with a distasteful look on her face that makes her nose scrunch up, "that sounds so juvenile."

He chuckles, "A bit, but Turians don't really have an equivalent. Mates would be the closest thing." Though he knows that the term is a much more serious statement than her own example, he can't seem to bring himself to correct the statement. Selfish, maybe, but if he can at least fool himself with the thought than he'd take it.

Jane twists her lips and looks off in silent contemplation. "I guess we can always go with both. I never did get to use the terms _boyfriend and girlfriend_ as a kid because I never had one." She smirks over to Garrus, "Might as well get it out of my system now."

She laughs at his exaggerated eye roll, but can't help the smile at her enthusiasm over the sudden shift in their relationship he had been yearning for. _I'm glad one of us has the guts to finally come out and say what we want_, he thinks to himself.

As her laughter comes to a close, he pulls her to him, pressing his lips plates against her soft lips. She hums in approval and softly opens her lips to suckle on the edge of his lips.

He growls in his own approval, and moves the kiss into deeper territory with his long tongue snaking out to lap under her top lip. She moans and responds with her own tongue coming out to caress against his own, her plumb flat surface against his thinner and rougher muscle.

Their tongues tangle until they have to pull apart to desperately gasp for air, their foreheads pressed together as their pants mix and echo together. He wishes they could take this further and he almost ignores the tiny voice in the back of his head that warns he needs sleep to move back in when an uncontrollable yawn escapes.

He pulls back from her, his traitorous mandibles and jaw opening wide to let his tired yawn escape while he silently curses his luck. As soon as he gains control of his stupid body, he snaps his jaw shut and shakes off his exhaustion, only to find Jane chuckling.

"Our serious talk got you all tuckered out?" She smiles sweetly, her eyes sparkling with mirth and something else he likes to think is love. "You should get some sleep, you had a long day."

His is fixing to protest when she moves her hands to the catches of his armor, pushing slightly on him to get him up off the bed so she can help him get more comfortable. "At least let me undress myself or else this will go in an entirely different direction."

She chuckles but releases him, leaving a soft peck against his cheek plate before she leaves the room, returning once he is down to his undersuit with a glass of water. "Are you going back to bed?" he asks as he pulls his suit off to climb into bed.

She shakes her head as she swallows, "I don't know if I can sleep, but I wouldn't mind laying with you?" she tilts her head in a silent offer and unsure question.

He raises the blankets up on what they've come to think of as her side of the bed._As if there would be any doubt_, he thinks to himself. He can see her happy smile in the dark of the room as she climbs under the blankets and settles against his side.

He drifts off to an exhausted sleep with her head cradled on his shoulder, his muzzle against the crown of her head, one hand holding her shoulders to him while the other lies against her hip, and her hands softly stroking against his chest in a soothing, senseless motion.


	38. Chapter 38

~Jane~

Jane was happy, happier than she had ever really admitted to feeling in her entire life, and it was all because she had finally swallowed her pride and spoke to Garrus about her feelings that she didn't even know how to explain.

Though they had only been in this new step of their relationship for a little over a week, she felt lighter, younger, and more full of life while around him. No one in her entire life had made her feel the things she felt when around him, and it took all of her confidence to keep her walls from rising when she treaded into unfamiliar territory. She didn't think that the confidence and power the N7 training was trying to instill in her, but she was damn sure she wasn't going to let it go to waste.

If her opening up and allowing herself to care for someone as she had never done before meant that she could continue to feel the pleasure she felt in Garrus' company and wrapped in his warm embrace, then she would gladly face the unknown. She knew that whatever was building between them was worth the uneasiness of the unknown.

Right now, though, Garrus was still at work stuck on a case that has been causing him problems since before she arrived to the Citadel on leave. She knew that regulations kept him from disclosing any information about and ongoing case, but she also knew him well enough that the tension in his shoulders and long days were a sign that the case was not going as smoothly as most.

Trying to keep her mind from getting caught up with her sense of uselessness to help him, she turns her attention to the black guitar in her lap. Garrus was right when he had told her that he'd take good care of it, she muses as she runs her hands along its smooth surface.

It seems like he had kept it nice and clean while she was gone, which she wasn't surprised to find when considering the upkeep of his almost immaculate apartment. What was surprising was the fact that it seemed like he had tried to keep it tuned as it was when she had left it here so long ago. The notes were a bit off still, but it was damn close considering that he probably didn't have the best knowledge of the correct sound.

It was then that it hit her, his ears were probably better at hearing the subtle shifts in key and tone, so perhaps he didn't really need to know how each string was supposed to sound. She smiles at the image of Garrus probably searching up what each string should sound on his visor and trying to match up the sound on the string.

_He must have thought that to keep a guitar in proper condition, it needed to be constantly tuned. I guess I should tell him that it's okay to let it go out of tune, I won't hold that against him,_ she chuckles to herself at his endearing efforts to try and take care of her few belongings.

It doesn't take but a few moments to finish tuning the guitar the rest of the way and she immediately falls into the long ago familiarity of warmup chords from her childhood. Once her fingers feel nimble enough, she shakes her elbows loosely, letting a song pop up into her head as she starts to pluck the strings in rhythm.

As she idly plays in the empty apartment, she lets her mind drift with the music, remembering the happiness a guitar and its owner brought her as a child and wondering if she can start new memories with the instrument in her hands and the only other person who has ever meant anything to her.

She losses track of time and doesn't know how late is has become when she hears the front door's lock disengage and the heavy footsteps entering. She places her guitar to the side with a smile and moves to greet him in the living room, but stops short with a frown when her eyes fall on his form slumped at the table.

She approaches him slowly, noticing his tense shoulders, his low growl, and his hands clenched against the sides of his head, all signs that today was a very bad day. She sits at the table next to him, placing her hand against his back in solidarity, and watches as his mandibles flick in barely contained anger.

His growl grows louder as he drops his hands to fist on the table top. "What's the saying, Jane, C-Sec fucked me?" He doesn't look to her, but maintains his full attention on his hands as they clench and unclench. "I had the slimy bastard and they let him go…"

Though she doesn't understand the exacts of his anger, she knows that this is another instance in which he has found himself bogged down by the endless piles of paperwork and red tape. She scoots her chair closer to his side and places her hand at his wrist, a calming weight that he reacts to with a slight lessen in built up tension.

He sighs and drops his head, "If they had just listened to me, had just fried his ship or shot it down, the twisted bastard wouldn't be taking off somewhere to torture more people."

Unable to really add to his conversation because of her lack of knowledge of his case, she decides to just try and help him vent what he can. "I'm sorry, Garrus," she says for lack of anything else to say.

He slams his free hand against the table and his shoulders slump. "I was working on suspicious organ sales in the Black Market…"

"Garrus," she interrupts, "I don't want you to get yourself into trouble by telling me about your cases." She doesn't know what the punishment would be, but she's pretty sure that if anyone were to find out he was telling his human girlfriend about his case and suspects, things wouldn't end well.

Garrus shrugs dismissively, "C-Sec lost him because of their own stupidity. There's no way I'm ever going to get the chance to find him again, so if they have any complaints they have no one to blame but themselves." He looks to Jane and rolls his hand so that lies palm up on the table, a silent request which she gladly answers by twining her fingers with his.

He hums a low, bass mix of growl and rumble and strokes his thumb over hers, silently contemplating before continuing. "I was tasked with checking the Black Market once we received word that a large amount of organs were passing through. I had thought it was all just going to come down to a cloning facility selling off their extra supply or worst case it'd be some psycho chopping people up, but when we scanned the organs to match up the DNA, things got a lot weirder.

"I traced one organ all the way to Tayseri Ward to a Turian who was very adamant that he wasn't missing his liver. Another led me to a former Krogan thug that was more than pissed that I believed he was missing his testicles." He rubbed his forehead with his free hand, "I'd rather not have another conversation like that with a Krogan who thought I was insulting his ability to count to four…"

Jane wanted to check that she really did just hear what she thought she heard, but even her own curiosity couldn't overshadow that this was about Garrus venting his anger and frustration. She was proud to be the one he trusted enough to lay it all out for. Silently, she tightens her grip to let him know to continue when he feels ready.

"I did more digging and found that nearly every organ could be traced back to a living civilian and that all of them had a connection to a Dr. Saleon, a geneticist. Most worked in his lab while others, like the Krogan, claimed to have been paid off for _services rendered_.

"I knew I couldn't take the word of some Krogan criminal that claimed something was up, so I went to Saleon's lab, hoping to find something solid to back up the claims, but I found nothing, not one thing was out of the ordinary. By that time, I didn't have anything solid against Saleon and I couldn't risk raising any alarms by continuing my search in plain sight of him, so I brought in some of his employees for questioning, to try and find more evidence.

"In the middle of an interrogation, one of the employees starting acting strange when I started to hit too close to home with my questions. He panicked and in his attempts to leave, he started to bleed profusely when we only tried to detain him. We offered to patch him up, offer him some medical assistance before continuing, but he only freaked out more.

"I knew something was up, nothing we did could account for the amount of bleeding he was having, he didn't come in hurt, and his outright refusal to let us treat him was way too obvious that something was going on. I ordered a full examination under the authority that he was a danger to himself and in no condition to deny medical treatment." Garrus shakes his head in disbelief, "The medics found incisions all over the guy and some were even fresh, barely days old."

"It all made sense, a twisted kind of sense, but one all the same. Dr. Saleon was using his employees as test tubes, cloning tissue inside their own bodies, then harvesting them to sell on the Black Market." He clenches his free hand and Jane grips his other in silent assurance. "Every person who agreed to this torture was poor or in desperate need of money, so they said he offered them a percentage of the sales for each organ. Only downside was that he only wanted the good organs, the healthy organs suitable for sell and transplant.

"If an organ didn't grow properly he left in their bodies, to slowly decay and weaken them. All the reports I've gotten from doctors say that they are all fucked up inside, healthy from outward appearances, but dying deep down."

Jane is speechless from the horrors he describes, the possibility that someone could suffer the figurative treatment of being thought of as something less than human, nothing more than an experiment. She now sees why Garrus has been so stressed lately since she's been visiting him, and she feels an anger in her own body building at the fact that he claims Dr. Saleon has gotten away.

Knowing that the answer isn't going to be good, she has to ask him for the rest of his tale because she knows that his rage will do him no good if left to build up inside. "What happened with the doctor and C-Sec?" If he needs to use her to vent, then so be it, she would gladly take that figurative bullet because he has done the same for her with her nightmares.

Garrus bows his head with a growl, his voice reverberating with his pent up anger, "He must have caught wind of his employees being taken in and seen by doctors because he blew his lab, destroying anything that might have given us evidence and took his remaining employees as hostages to the nearest space dock. By the time I found out and rushed to intercept him, he was already on a ship, disengaged from docking, and heading out of the Citadel. He threatened to kill every last one of his hostages if we didn't let him escape but I couldn't just let him get away, not with everything he did.

"I ordered Citadel defense to take his ship down, damn the loss of the hostages, but C-Sec went around me and countermanded my order. They were worried about losing those employees and any civilians should debris from his ship return to the Citadel, but I told them that with what I've seen of his victims, those hostages are dead anyway. C-Sec wouldn't listen, wouldn't do anything to stop him, so I had to sit by and watch that bastard fly away, out of my grasp, to disappear into a nameless maniac who can just do it all over again.," he slams his fist onto the table, but it has less force behind it, as if the telling of it all has drained him.

Jane strokes his hand clasped with hers with her free hand, thinking over how to say the thoughts running through her head. She understands his anger, hell she shares it, and she agrees completely with him, but how does she tell him in a way that doesn't lessen the value of the lives of those who could've died?

A moment passes as the two stare at their joined hands before she draws his attention. "I agree with you, Garrus," he looks to her with a tilt of his head. "Though you weren't asking for my opinion, I think that your call was best for those people. Their lives were taken from them the moment that doctor took them hostage and shooting his ship down wouldn't have made any difference from letting him go. At least then you could've kept him from doing it to more people." She looks into his piercing eyes, "Your call may have been ruthless, but sometimes a small sacrifice is what it takes to accomplish the bigger picture."

Garrus looks into her eyes, searching for something, seeming to ponder if her words are merely to calm him or the truth. "I had figured you would try to convince me that letting him go was the right choice. That sacrificing innocent people would make me no better than him."

"Is that what you want? For me to challenge your judgment call?" Now it is all clear, he is so used to someone on his back demanding that all he does is wrong, that his judgment is flawed, that he doesn't have the confidence to follow his instincts when all is said and done.

He growls and looks away from her, "I know that making that call was the right choice, but looking at it now, would it be better if I had accomplished it or not?"

Jane squeezes his hand, pulling his attention back to her eyes, and she locks gazes with him. She's never seen him so at odds with a decision and it's heartbreaking. She knows what she needs to do to give him back his control, his quick reactions to gut instincts, and she will do whatever it takes to help him see in himself what she sees.

"Garrus," she starts sternly, "You've got the best damn instincts I've ever seen in a person and I've never even seen you on the field. You may be one hard headed and brash bastard, but you know what you're doing." She tugs on him so that they are spun to face each other in their chairs, "Don't you ever doubt your decisions because I would've done the same damn thing." Her voice softens and she drops her head, surprised when his own drops and presses his forehead against her own. "Don't ever change, Vakarian," her voice is barely above a whisper.

Suddenly, Jane finds herself pulled into Garrus' lap with a low growl. She doesn't have time to remark on his speed and remarkable ability to make her feel less like a marine and more like a damsel before he pulls her head to his to press his mouth against her lips with bruising force.

She moans at his intensity, which he gladly takes advantage of by plunging into her warm mouth with his coarse tongue. He has gotten forceful with her before, but this she knows is about the release, the easing of the tension that's built up since his case went ass backwards. He pulls away from her mouth to attack her neck with a growl as a hand forcefully cups her through her clothes and Jane has to admit that something in his urgent need sends hot sparks down her belly.

She tries to reach for the clasps of his armor but she is stopped by the sound of tearing fabric and a rush of hot air against her chest. She gasps at the sudden sensation but doesn't get a chance to catch her breath before Garrus hooks a talon under the center of her bra and tears through the fabric.

"Damn it, Garrus. I need that." She huffs, unable to put up much of a fight when one hand wraps around her back and pulls her closer and his wet tongue circles a hard nipple.

"Then get a new one." His words are barely audible through his deep thrumming and she gasps when he clamps his mouth around one breast, his teeth against her flesh but not breaking the skin. She moans and grinds into him at the sensation of his almost too hot mouth and tongue combined with the idea that he could rip her apart if he wanted to. Probably not best to think about the fact that possible pain gets her worked up.

Garrus works her breast between one hand and his mouth with such force that she's shocked how fast she's started to soak her panties. She's had plenty of quick fucks before in her life, but she's never been so turned on by someone so demanding and dominating as he is now.

Usually, she was always the one to take command and control, almost never allowing another to have the satisfaction of taking her. Here, with him, she wants nothing more than to lay back and take everything he has to give, and the thought of him doing just that has her throwing her head back with a wanton moan.

He reacts strongly to her submission, growling and lifting her up to the table. He stands between her legs and forces her back against the table, all while continuing his assault on her chest and neck. With one hand on her right breast, twisting her nipple just to the brink of pleasure and pain, and his tongue lavishing her neck with a reverberating thrumming, his other hand snakes to the closure of her pants, nearly ripping them open with his talons.

"Garrus," she moans as he legs are bared to the chill apartment air. She vaguely hears the sound of something heavy dropping to the ground before his hands move to her thighs and pull her hips to the edge of the table. She wraps her legs around his waist to rest on the juts of his hips and he rewards her with a low rumble and a rub of his hot sex across her already weeping folds.

She gasps at the ripple of pleasure that shoots up her spine from the mere stimulation of his ridges along her clit, not really having the state of mind to remark on how ready he already is for her.

One of his hands comes to the table beside her head, holding him above her, as his other moves under her butt to raise her hips. She shifts to take him in hand, but he stops her with a growl and a clamp of his jaws around her neck below her chin. Her breath rattles in her throat and she can feel the assuring purr more than hear it as his tongue caresses her skin, but she relents and lets her hands move up his body to take hold of his shoulders.

He growls approvingly, and shifts his hips so that his tip is nestled right amongst her inner folds. She inhales, knowing full well what he plans, before he plunges deep into her with a hard thrust, pulling a deep moan from her.

He is gentle enough with his first plunge that he doesn't force his entire length within her, knowing where to stop before reaching that point of pain, but the intrusion is still sudden and she can't control the responding clinch of her muscles. He releases a moan before pulling back and thrusting against her hard, still stopping himself from going completely in, but adding more of his length with each plunge to widen her.

Eventually his hard thrusts have her open enough to allow him to plunge deep, all the way to his wide base, and he adds a twist of his hips each time their flesh slaps together to brush against her engorged clit. Jane can do nothing more but hold on to him with her legs and arms, clinging to him as he pounds into her relentlessly.

She feels the tightening in her belly that signals the start of her orgasm and she tries to hold it back, trying to hold it off until he starts to show signs of his own closure. He must feel her body's jerky movements because his mouth releases her neck to run his tongue along her neck, from chin to twirl behind her ear. He plunges deep into her and rocks his plates against her clit hard, and that combined with his hot breath against her sweat chilled skin sends her over screaming and digging her blunt nails into the plates and hide of his neck.

She comes down after who knows how long to find that he has released her neck to rest his head against the wood of the table, his heavy, growling pants in her ear, and mandible flicking against her sweat slick skin and hair. His hips rock softly as he rides out her tight clenching on his cock, a low rumble flowing from his chest to hers.

Her sex is sensitive, but seeing him so ready and still so needy has her own body responding in kind, so she moves her hands to his ass and squeezes his dick in time as a silent cue to continue. He moves his hands to the opposite edge of the table, gripping hard and causes his shoulders to rise, and he looks straight into her eyes. His vivid blue eyes, pupils wide with lust and desire, lock onto her own and she feels herself involuntarily tighten at the sight above her.

Without further pause, Garrus starts back up with his brutal pace as if they hadn't stopped. Her breasts bounce with each hard plunge and echo of wet flesh against slick plate. The sounds are obscene, but they only help to urge the two on and soon she's writhing under him, a second orgasm building up. His movements become more stuttered and he shifts to bring one hand to their joining to stroke against her clit in time with his motions, trying to draw out her climax in time with his own.

Like a wave of intense sensations, Jane throws her head back and screams as her second orgasm sweeps through her veins. Lighting sparks through her body from where they are connected and she doesn't have the sense to comprehend him bowing over her with a low moan as he finishes into her, filling her with his fluids.

When she comes down, Garrus is holding himself on his elbows over her flushed body, panting and barely able to hold up his weight. She leans to him, kissing him against his mandible, which he flicks out in an imitation of pressing into the kiss. "Damn Garrus," she smirks when he looks sideways at her, "when you said Turians use sex to ease stress, I had no idea it'd be like that."

He flicks a mandible in a soft smirk, "Not really going to apologize for jumping you."

She wraps her arms around his neck, letting him settle more of his weight against her. "I wouldn't want you to." Then she remembers, "Oh, and you're buying me a new bra. Those things are expensive."

He chuckles, "Ruined clothes come with having a Turian boyfriend, I'm afraid." She smiles at his use of the word and presses her head to his, which he responds with a soft rumble. "Also, I think I might need to replace the table."

Her eyebrows draw down in confusion and he pulls up and out of her, giving his hand in offering to pull her up. When he pulls her to her feet he points to the table, where six gouges are dug deep into the far edge of the table. Three of the gouges on one side trail from the edge and down to midway through the table to stop near where her head was. "Looks like you got a little carried away there, Garrus."

He shrugs dismissively and somehow pulls it off with his armor's codpiece still missing. "I think it adds character."

She snorts at his response while he bends down to grab his discarded armor and she finds that most of her clothes are ruined. She should be miffed at the thought that he ruined a good set of clothes, but it's nice to see him past the doctor situation and she can always go shopping for some more. It isn't like she's spending her money on somewhere to crash when staying at his apartment.

"You know," Garrus walks up to her, and strokes a hand through her sex strewn hair. "I think I'm liking this look on you. You should walk around the apartment naked more often."

That does it, she laughs uncontrollably at the image of herself spending her entire time on the Citadel in the nude. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Garrus. Wouldn't want to cause a scene."

He flicks a mandible, "who would see? We're too high up to actually be seen by passersby or transports and nobody just walks into my apartment but you or me." He tilts his head as he looks down at her, "Plus, Turians don't really have anything against walking around the house naked. It's quite common, actually. I used to do it all the time when I was alone." The image of Garrus walking around the apartment without a scrap of clothing is something she could definitely live with. "And you like that idea…"

"Damn you and your ability to smell arousal," she huffs with mock indignation.

He hums and nuzzles against her sweaty scalp, "I like your smell. It's unique and a bit distracting sometimes."

"Well then," she stalks slowly to the bedroom, throwing him a sultry look over her shoulder, "why don't you teach me a lesson about causing unwanted distractions with my alluring smell."

His response is a low growl of approval and arousal and the sounds of his footfalls and armor dropping to the ground as his makes his way to the bedroom to show her the benefits of Turian stamina.


	39. Chapter 39

~SquigglySquid says: Short update, sorry. Got home late from travel, but I will have more tomorrow.~

~Jane~

"You know," Jane muses over her cup of chocolate laced coffee, "I don't know how I'll be able to manage in a hotel room by myself for a _whole_ week." She smirks at the sound of his huff off to her side.

"I think you'll live, you've been living off me for long enough I'm sure you can even afford the good rooms." She mock pouts when she catches his eye in between bites of his breakfast. He nudges her leg with his knee and her cheek softly with his forehead after swallowing a bite. "I'm sorry, Jane. You know I wouldn't put you out if it wasn't for a good reason."

She smiles and runs her forehead across his, to which he responds with a soft purr of contentment. "Of course I know. I'm just being a shit with you." His mandibles flick in a mirroring smile. "I'm glad and think it's great your mom is visiting. How long has it been since you've seen her last?"

He pulls from her and turns to his meal, guilt on his features. "Too long…Not since before coming to the Citadel. I talk to her plenty on vid calls, but I haven't been home. Usually it's always my dad leaving to Palaven to see her and not her coming here to see us."

Seeing him struggle, she lays her hand on his forearm on the table, silently allowing him to continue. He hums in appreciation and sits back in his seat, done with his breakfast, before continuing. "She's staying at my dad's apartment, but my mother has a knack for showing up unannounced. She's had it ever since I was little." His mandible flicks out in what Jane thinks a far-away look would be on a Turian.

She smirks and shifts so that she is seated sideways in her chair, facing him more. "Don't tell me that you had some typical television sitcom moments as a teen…"

Garrus snorts, "I can't believe humans are so embarrassed by that." He smirks at her shocked expression.

Jane glares and swats at his arm lightly, him not even able to feel it past his C-Sec armor. "You're so full of shit. You make Palaven sound like some giant orgy planet where people are going at it on the streets." He chuckles and she tilts her head back, questioning what she's going to do with this insufferable Turian. Shaking her head she looks back to him to see a warm expression in his eyes and she can't help the warm feeling in her chest. "How long is your mother staying on the Citadel?" she then asks.

He ponders for a moment, probably thinking back to an earlier discussion he probably had with his mother. "About a week, give or take a day. She wasn't exactly too sure on the exact departure date."

Jane can't help the soft smile that crosses her face as she thinks about the happiness that Garrus' mother's visit will bring him. Since first getting word of it yesterday, he's seemed more cheerful and a bit anxious to see her. His joyful attitude seems to be contagious, but she knows that deep down, her happiness comes from the sight of his own.

In some strange way, Garrus' mother is important to her too, not just because she gave birth to him, but because she gave him his life.

From his stories, Jane can tell that his mother was the one he looked up to as a child, the person he looked to for guidance. His view of the world is what it is because of what his mother had taught him. When he told her of his father, Garrus was filled with frustration and unease at their relationship, but when he spoke of his mother, his eyes lit up and she could see the blind love he had for her.

If it hadn't have been for his mother, Garrus would not be the strong and determined man that Jane loved today, plain and simple.

For that, Jane would gladly sleep in a hotel room, no matter the cost or quality of room, so that he could get a chance to see her again. It is with that determination that she stands, now empty coffee cup in hand, and lays a quick peck of a kiss on the top base Garrus' middle crest, before heading over to the disposal.

As she deposits her morning trash away, she feels and hears him walk up behind her. He deposits his own morning remnants away from around her while nuzzling his head in her hair. She chuckles at the soft scratch of his plates on her scalp.

"Wait," she startles with sudden realization, "how are you going to explain your apartment smelling like me?" He pulls back from her head and she tilts back as much as she can, trying to reach eye contact but failing. _Close enough_.

He hums softly and strokes his hand through her loose hair. "I'm sending the sheets of the bed to be cleaned, so the strong smell of arousal should be taken care of."

"Garrus, we had sex on more things in your apartment but the bed." She says, her brows dropping in a frown.

"Not in a few days at least, so the smell isn't as strong." His muzzle returns to her hair, taking in her scent as he tends to do when her hair is down, and one arm wraps loosely around her torso. It is because of that that she's found herself leaving it down and over her shoulders more often despite how odd it feels to not have it pulled out of her face in one way or another.

"I know the apartment still has to smell like me in more innocent ways," Jane moves her hand back and he takes it, linking their fingers, without prompt.

"I'll think of something to say." He speaks softly as his fingers softly caress hers. She never thought she'd enjoy the casual embrace of another, the intimate touching that didn't immediately mean sex and desire, but she can't stop the light feeling that enfolds from her chest every time she feels his physical affection. "I doubt my mother will be able to know all the nuances of human smells."

She snorts, "And what if she does? For all you know your mother could have been well around that block."

He grunts in disapproval and gives her head a light shove with his head. "Now who's the one making Turians out to be sex fiends…and my mother no less?" She hears his mandible click in response to her soft chuckle.

After a few quiet moments in his arms, she pulls away reluctantly. "Come on, I need to head out before your mom docks and decides to stop by." She shakes her head when she turns, knowing he sees it, "It'll be a lot harder to explain a human in your apartment if your mom is able to smell said human in person leaving your home."

Garrus walks with Jane to the living room where she has her things pilled together and awaiting her departure. It's a small cluster of items consisting only of her duffle with her clothes and toiletries, her guitar, her small tote that holds her sketchpads, and a slightly bigger tote that contains all the food from his kitchen catered to a levo diet.

Despite her protest, Garrus helps her with her things by taking the two larger bags before she is able to snatch them up. "I'm a grown woman, Garrus, and a damn N7. Let me carry my own damn bags." She tries to reach for them, but the damnable bastard holds them high, stubborn as always. Giving up with a frustrated, and overly exaggerated, sigh, Jane decides it's not worth the effort and gets the remaining bags.

He walks to the door, but stops before the sensor can react to let them out, turning to her. "I wanted to thank you again. I don't want you to have to sleep in a hotel…"

She silences him with a press to his forehead. "Don't worry about it, I've slept on rocks in full armor," she pulls back slightly with a smile. "You should take her to a place in Tayseri Ward called Macedonia's. That's where I got you that steak you said reminded you of home. You said you wanted to take her somewhere nice."

A look of surprise passes his face and he pulls back a bit to examine her face. "You got that dinner from Macedonia's?"

"Yeah, why?" She is confused by his reaction. She didn't understand his reaction and certainly hoped she hadn't ruined that great experience by serving him some place he disapproved of or something.

With a slight shake of his head, he flicks a mandible out and softens his expression. "It's nothing." He closes the gap between them again, silently assuring that she had done no harm. "It's just that that place is somewhere the higher tiered Turians go. It's really expensive so not everyone can afford it and usually you see mostly superior officers there." He snorts softly, "I even think my dad likes to go there with Pallin and the Counselor."

Jane frowns and bites her lip, wishing she could put a word in with Macedonia herself to get Garrus a nice evening, but knew she couldn't because of their mutual agreement to keep their relationship a secret. The hatred between their two species was still too prevalent and their individual careers too important for their attraction to be known.

With a dejected sigh she nods in understanding, but he nudges her head, pulling her attention back. "Hey, I didn't say I wasn't going to go. I was just surprised that you had gone through so much trouble that night to give me something that meant so much." He nuzzles against her, "I definitely need to figure out a better way to repay you for that now."

She smiles with a soft chuckle and lifts up on her toes. "I can think of a few things."

He hums in piqued interest and she kisses his mouth plates, soft but firmly. Both of them can only use one hand while still holding the bags, but even so, he tangles his in her hair, pulling her close, while her own cups his mandible to do the same.

She opens her mouth at the soft flick of his tongue and he dives in, slowly caressing her own. His actions are loving, not igniting the flame in her belly but sending enough sparks to make her body buzz with contentment. Despite their want for more, the short kiss is enough and they pull away with equal smiles in their eyes.

Done with their goodbyes and knowing that they will have to hold off until they can see each other again, they leave the apartment and Garrus walks Jane to the transit hub to call a shuttle. When it arrives, he helps her pack her bags into its storage compartment and she makes him promise to 'stop fussing over her convenience and have fun with his mom, damn it.'

He agrees with a mandible flick and imitation of a human eye roll before she shuts the shuttle door with a twist of her lips. She sees him through the window watch her cab as it lifts from the hub, turning to return to his apartment once it enters the moving traffic.


	40. Chapter 40

~Jane~

If someone were to ask Jane why she has traveled to the Alliance recruiting office in the Human Embassies, she isn't sure she'd be able to give them a good answer. Even she was confused as to why she suddenly had the urge today to come here, but she knew that it came down to the draw to the office's MIA and KIA memorial.

When she first decided to get a hotel room so that Garrus wouldn't have to worry about her being in his apartment in case his mother showed up, she had worried slightly that she wouldn't be able to sleep. She had become accustomed to her plated bed partner and though she hated to admit, she had come to depend on the feeling of his presence while she drifted to sleep.

His contact seemed to help the nightmares from forming into those that woke her with screams and cries of pain.

Sure, she was going to have a few nights where her mind replayed the tragedy of losing so many people she felt responsible for, but it was more a look back at the experience and not her mind torturing her. Since her horrible night of imagining Garrus' face melting away, she didn't have those vivid nightmares of the things in her head recalling her current life.

She was relieved to find that for the past few nights spent alone in the hotel bed, her subconscious had decided not to take advantage.

Perhaps this meant that she was starting to get over the pain, the guilt, and the regret of what she went through on Akuze. Perhaps this is why her body feels drawn to the memorial of those the Alliance has ever lost.

The memorial for the soldiers is a simplistic one, meant to be able to offer a sense of piece to all those who lost someone who served. To anyone not familiar with it, it would seem like a simple vid screen with a sculpted System's Alliance insignia proudly stationed at its peak and a helmet sitting on a stand before it, but it means so much more.

The memorial's screen displays names of those lost or missing, either from war or during noncombat missions. The screen will slowly fade after a moment to display more soldiers, making sure to never leave a name unaccounted for, before looping back to the beginning.

For many soldiers, this is the only way that the Alliance can honor them. Not everyone, like many from Akuze, had been able to be recovered and returned to their families, but here, on this screen, they are remembered.

Shortly after her recovery from the Thresher Maw attacks Jane had tried to come here, to pay respects to her fellow soldiers but the moment the monument had come into focus in the distance she panicked. She admits that she never forgave herself for being such a coward, but knows that today is a chance to make up for her earlier weakness.

She approaches the memorial with full assurance that this is what brought her here. This need to finally acknowledge the loss, but to except that there is no changing the past. Her friends are lost, but that doesn't mean that she shouldn't live.

Coming close enough to be able to read the words on the screen, she starts to scan through the names, desperately searching for any names she can remember.

Scanning through, she finds some of her fellow soldiers and when her mind matches the face to the name, her earlier fears of such a connection bringing images of their deaths are proved wrong. Instead of hearing each of their screams of agony or seeing the images of their mangled corpses, Jane is flooded with good memories with each she can find.

Reading Reynolds' name reminds her that he had once told everyone he liked to write programs for simple games on his Omni-Tool. One night he had even shared his programs with some of the others and the whole night had been spent trying to beat each other's scores in his simulated racing game.

Toombs' name reminds her of the man who could always be found chewing gum when no superior was looking. As soon as an officer turned their back, Toombs would be gnawing away at another piece after just being forced to spit one out. Looking back, Jane thinks it was more the action of moving his jaw then the actual taste because he was rumored to have kept a single piece from wake-up call until lights-out, and it defiantly must have tasted like rubber by then.

She finds another, S. Almanza, and she remembers the young woman who had a tendency to mumble dessert recipes to herself when she performed mindless tasks like cleaning her gun, making her bunk, or prepping her armor, but became embarrassed if anyone ever pointed it out.  
>She continues to read through the names, finding her departed squadmates and reminiscing over little facts that she's surprised to have remembered but one name in particular still remains to be found and as the screens fade to more individuals, her heart beats faster in anticipation.<p>

Suddenly her eyes fall on his name, M. Jameson, and the entire Citadel falls away in the distance, her mind focused on nothing else but those tiny letters on a holographic screen.

Her mind floods with memories of the big oaf, clumsy and shy that he almost seemed to be imaginary. He was smart enough to have made it in school and he had remarked that his family certainly didn't hurt for money for it. That and the thought that he was the exact opposite of every other marine she had ever met, including herself.

Though he looked big and strong, ready to take out enemy forces without a second thought, he was against unnecessary violence and usually wanted to have postings that would have him helping people. He would gladly take a job as a relief soldier that tended to aiding colonists than being in the front lines, even if he never rose in ranks.

To him, becoming a soldier had meant doing good for those in need and not being the best killing machine. Jane had never understood how the two could be different in his eyes if they accomplished the same thing, but she never disagreed with his determination in his own ways.

Seeing Jameson's name upon the board brings a sad smile to Jane's lips. It's bittersweet to see him here, nothing more to people than a name on a board, but he is remembered, acknowledged for the hero that he was.

She raises her hand up to his name, her fingers passes through the projected letters with a soft static. "I'm sorry it took me so long to come see every one of your names," she softly addresses all her lost friends. "It wasn't anything against any of you, just my own stupidity and fear…I was afraid to move on, I guess."

She pulls her hand back as the screen fades. "It was an honor to serve with each of you, both under some on your commands and above the others. You were more than my friends, many of you were my family." Jane pauses, trying to find the words to explain to herself and the names on the wall.

The physiatrist so long ago had told her that there was a final step that she hadn't taken and that because of it, she could not move forward. She had ignored every word beyond the basics to get her back on duty out of arrogant belief that no one could read her mind better than herself. She believed she was over Akuze as soon as her wounds had healed and anything else said was just a load of bull.

Looking at herself now, she now realizes that to be able to live her life as it was now, to move on to make new relationships with squadmates or people outside of the military, she needs to allow her emotional wounds to heal.

To do that, she must listen what her nightmares have been trying to tell her all along, through their own disjointed and horrific way. None more horrific than that of the dying form of the most important person in her life, Garrus.

With his dying breath, his mangled and bleeding face in her arms, he had told her that she 'had to let go' and it may only be because of him, both in her dream and in reality, that she feels she can finally do that.

Taking a deep breath, Jane raises her chin proudly and looks into the screen of soldier's names. "I will always remember each and every one of you. Though I may still have nightmares of that day, I will never again waste my chance at life by feeling guilty for surviving. I will not dishonor your sacrifices crying about what could have been and debating what ifs."

She moves her hand to her pocket, pulling out a single coin from Earth. Outside of Earth, the money doesn't mean much in ways of purchasing something, but she doesn't want the silver coin for money. Instead, she strokes her thumb across its surface and continues, "My old Instructor from boot camp once told me of an old tradition in Earth's military. Since I can't really go to each of your graves and I don't even know where, and if, all of you have your boxes buried, I'll leave this here."

She crouches down and lays the coin at the base of the memorial beside various flower arrangements and other tokens of respect and remembrance, before returning to her stand. She salutes the memorial, hoping that, despite her doubts, there is a place where her lost friends are looking down.


	41. Chapter 41

~Jane~

After paying her respects to her fallen comrades, Jane had stayed about the Alliance recruitment offices for a while.

She found herself talking to various kids who were interested in applying for recruitment but were still undecided, offering advice and answering their questions. The conversations helped to pass the time she would've just spent mulling about the Citadel, so she couldn't really complain about playing 20 questions.

Soon though, her stomach began to make the fact known that it was lunch and it would rather be eating than talking, so she excused herself and went on her way. She figured the recruiters could take the rest of the questions as it was technically their job and she was off the Alliance clock.

Jane now sits at a small table in a dinner close to her hotel. Apparently, she found the Asari equivalent to chicken fried steak and she couldn't care less about the image she must make as she drenches it in gravy and takes huge bites.

She is chewing on a particularly large piece when her Omni-Tool chimes with a message. She can already guess who it is before pulling the interface up and smiles when her suspicions are proved true.

She and Garrus have been sending pings during her time away whenever he seems to be at a slow point in his day. She told him not to while at work, but she knows him too well to believe that his written agreement wasn't really just a dismissive shrug of his shoulder and insistence to do it anyway.

She may have to admit to herself that she is also a bad influence because she can't seem to resist replying each and every time he pings, despite her reluctance to get him into trouble.

Pulling up his message she reads quietly while sipping on her drink. "I get off soon. Want to meet up?"

She snorts softly to herself, "Eager are we? It's only been three days, Garrus."

"Yeah, but all my time is either spent working or sleeping."

She frowns, knowing he's messaged about his mother on the days before. "I thought you've been seeing your mom."

"I have, but I've also been around my dad. Trying not to fight with him when she's here and ruining her trip is like work…So, as I said, work or sleep."

She shakes her head, but doesn't get a chance to respond before he messages. "My dad didn't even take off for her visit, so he starts his shift tonight. I'll get to see her tonight and tomorrow night, she leaves the next day… I can't believe he's wasting his time working when mom traveled all this way to see him."

Not wanting him to get worked up, especially if he's at work and may possibly run the risk of running into the focus of his ire, she quickly types. "At least you get the chance to take her to Macedonia's."

"Yeah…I want to see you before then. Are you busy?"

"What? Now?" She finishes her meal with one last big bite and chews it as she waits for his response.

"I'm getting out now, so yes."

She goes back to her first statement of their conversation with a chuckle, "Eager are we?"

"I may be, but if you are busy I could always go to your hotel and wait for you…"

She sputters on the last few sips of her drink. She quickly looks around the eatery as if everyone can suddenly read her Omni-Tool and all eyes are on her.

She waves the waitress over and hands her credit chit, bypassing the quick look at the check. _Charge whatever, lady. I just need to get the hell out of here before this damn Turian makes me make a fool of myself_.

As her chit is being run, she looks back to her interface and decides to test him. "I don't know, I did have some errands I needed to run. I may take all day shopping before even being able to get back to my room."

She can just picture the smirk on his face with his next response. "That's fine, I can always ping you as I go along. Just to keep you aware of what you're missing."

"Oh yeah? And what might I miss?" She can't help her own smirk as she types.

"Your hotel has a better couch than mine, one that doesn't sink when you sit in it. It would be a great place to explore…possibilities. Too bad you won't be joining me."

The waitress returns and hands Jane her credit chit, which she accepts with a nod in thanks. Her Tool pings as she's heading out the door with another message. "It's a shame that after the whole day being uncomfortable in my armor thinking about you, I'll have to take care of it on my own."

_He's been thinking about me all day?_ Just as quickly, another message comes in. "My hands aren't close to the feeling of yours, even if they can't wrap around me. Even better is being inside you."

Reading his messages, actually able to imagine him with her and knowing that she's been missing him as much as he seems to have been, she can't help the rush of heat that flows down her body.

She quickly decides that she needs to get off of the Ward, where anyone with a strong enough sense of smell can smell her, and to her hotel. _Damn him if he's only teasing me_, she swears.

She call a cab, sending him a ping once she's seated and on her way back. "I'm on my way, you had better be out of that damn armor when I get there, or so help me."

She can practically imagine his responding chuckle when he responds, "I would never dream on denying you…" but she loves the smart ass, stubbornly confident bastard too much to care.


	42. Chapter 42

~Garrus~

Garrus has just enough time to head to his apartment, shower the smells of Jane from his plates, and get dressed before he hears his door chime signaling his mother's arrival.

_Still has that sense of timing, but I beat her this time,_ he muses as he disengages the lock to let her in.

A smile widens his mother's tannish silver mandibles. "Garrus… so good to finally see my son."

She moves close, cupping his face and pulling him down to rub her mandibles against his own with a soft purr. He pulls back with a quirked brow plate, "Mom, I've seen you every day since you arrived."

She snorts with a jerk of her head, "My son is not the man I saw with tight plates that hung on every word coming out of his mouth." His shoulders drop, reluctantly ready for the lecture about his dad. "Don't give me that…I know you two don't get along and I thank you for trying to be civil, but I missed you." She pulls him back to bump her forehead to his own, "I don't like seeing my son so stressed when he's supposed to be around family, the one place he should relax."

Garrus doesn't know how to respond. He knows the one thing his mother wants more than anything is to see her family happy and the rift between him and his father puts a serious damper on that, but he's tired of explaining his numerous efforts and failures to give her that.

"Well," his mother pulls away and makes for the kitchen. "I know you told me we had plans for dinner, but your old mother needs something to drink."

Walking behind her, Garrus motions for her to go to the table while he looks for something. "Did dad take you out to lunch?" He opens the cabinets in search for a light snack, pulling out a box of drink mix, figuring his mother probably didn't want to drink plain water and anything else he had was alcoholic.

"He did, actually." He holds the box in silent question and she nods. She continues as he turns around to grab her a glass of water, "we went to a little place with the most amazing Kishea…" He turns to her, with full glass in hand, wondering why her sentence just drifted off, and sees her attention on the table.

More specifically, on the long claw marks from his talons from one of his romps with Jane.

His mother runs her fingers over the deep scratches in the wood, her head tilted to the side in thought, and he clears his throat, hoping to not have to explain. "Here mom," he hands over the glass once she looks up, "there are various flavors of powders. Feel free to try anyone of them."

Her mandibles open in a warm smile. "I'm surprised, when I used to visit your off duty dwellings, you'd only be able to offer water or liquor." She sets the glass down to look among the flavors, "This is a much appreciated change."

Garrus hums absently in acknowledgment before taking the open chair and pulling it to the side before sitting down. He relaxes, watching as she reads each little package, trying to decide which to choose, before she stops with a confused brow lift.

"Garrus," she pulls out a packet of flavor and holds it out, "why do they sell levo flavors with dextro?"

He knows that his reaction to this is pivotal. If he lets his face or vocals portray his inner _oh shit_ reaction, she'll definitely know something is wrong, but if he plays it off, she may just accept it and let it drop. There's no question which option he's going to choose.

"I have co-workers over and they can't always drink when they visit." _Good enough, not a total lie but enough to explain that and the smell that still lingers,_ he hopes.

"Is that the scent in here? It doesn't smell like Asari or Salarian…" she must have accepted enough because her attention moves back to her flavor packet of choice as she opens it and pours it into the water.

Realizing he forgot something to stir the drink, and appreciating the chance to use some of the tension from her questioning, he gets up and moves quickly to grab a spoon. "It's human actually. C-Sec has human officers and some of them are actually friendly enough people."

_Just keep lacing some truth into the lies._ Garrus thanks Spirits he doesn't really believe in that he isn't very good at being a proper Turian because he doesn't think he'd be able to keep this up.

"That's good," she stirs her drink, "C-Sec should let every race have officers no matter what happens with the Counsel. Plus, I'm sure it helps with relating to citizens on the Citadel." He nods in agreement.

The two are quiet as she takes a drink, humming at the taste. "This is actually really good, I think I should get them for home." She smiles a warm smile that he remembers from his childhood.

One that always lit her face while she worked at her garden or when she cooked large meals for the family. One that had always gave him the feeling of her love without need for words or harmonics.

"So, where is it you'll be taking me tonight, hmm?" She asks before taking another sip.

"I know that staying at home with your sisters, you don't get to enjoy the best meals without us around so I decided to take you somewhere that reminded me of your cooking and home." He sits and leans back in his chair. "It'll be just like we are home except without all the work of actually having to cook. How's that sound?"

"I think that sounds delicious, but I guess that's all you're telling me?"

He flicks his mandible playfully, _surely, she hasn't forgotten her own son._ "Pretty much."

His mother huffs, but takes another drink, figuring it'd just be easier to drop the subject, as she mumbles under her breath. "As stubborn as your father…"

Normally, Garrus would take offense to being compared to his father, but he knows that his mother uses it without malice. He also knows that she is the only person he would ever allow to compare them without rebuttal.

Instead, he merely shrugs in response and begins to ask her about the events at home and with other members of the family on Palaven. In return, he relays stories of C-Sec, what little he can say of his cases, his position, funny situations during routine postings.

He makes sure to leave out the one thing he so desperately wishes he could tell her, despite his very being urging otherwise. He and Jane had a mutual agreement that it was best for both of them to not let their relationship be known, the consequences were too great even if only his mother knew.


	43. Chapter 43

~Garrus~

When time came to go to Macedonia's, Garrus was unsure of how to convince his mother to let him buy her a nice dinner, so he figured he'd just take her there and not give her a chance to refuse.

Every other day he had taken her out to a lunch, she had insisted he let her buy and because she had waited until they were in public, he let her. He definitely wasn't to be the one to look like he was refusing his own mother like some disobedient child in public.

She may think he's stubborn, but she's definitely worse in terms of manipulating the situation to get what she wanted. He figures that's probably how she managed living with her husband.

She doesn't seem to recognize the restaurant when they arrive, so he figures that his dad had never brought her here. He takes her in to the small establishment and they are seated promptly at a table, the only others besides a group of older Turians in the corner.

The restaurant only offers one meal consisting of whatever the cook had prepared for the day and Garrus is about to question when he glances to his mother and her calm look. He nods to the waiter in acknowledge to the news, figuring that this is common among fancier places if his mom's lack of reaction was anything to go by.

_How did Jane even find this place, let alone manage to befriend the owner?_ He thinks to himself as he takes a drink of the water at his table. Normally he'd order something else, but his mother was never one to drink so he decides to stick with whatever she's left to drink.

"Garrus, this place isn't what I was expecting." His mother looks around at the walls and the various depictions of various Palaven landmarks. "You can't be expecting me to let you to pay for all of this."

"Of course I'm paying. It's been years since I've seen you and I know that you miss family dinners at home." He motions to the room, "This is the closest I can get, unfortunately, so to make up for it, I'm buying."

She shifts in her seat, her harmonics with a slight hum of confusion, "But wouldn't you rather take someone else here, or to a place like it? A girl maybe – or a guy, whichever you choose…"

"Mom…" Garrus interjects, his harmonics questioning. _Just what is she getting at…_

"Garrus," she mirrors. "I can tell that you don't want to tell me and though I don't know why, I just think that you should know that I understand. I'm happy for you."

His brow plates raise and he emits a quick startled rumble. "You understand?"

"I meant it when I said it was good to finally see my son." Her mandible flicks and a low, sad hum makes it to his ears. "For the longest time you were so upset and I didn't know how to help you. At first I thought that it was just you conflicting with your father because you were a child and it was just typical children not getting along with their parents, but I could still see the pain as an adult. I know he's not an easy man to get along with, but something also told me that that wasn't all.

"It hurt to not know how to help my own son and not knowing what seemed to have taken away the happiness he had as a child. I missed that little boy who would get into my garden and often trample my flowers when not watching his feet." She huffs a laugh, lacking all mirth. "I may have gotten after you for destroying things in your attempt to put them together again, but I loved all those times and missed that boy whenever I saw how lost you seemed.

"I saw the change in you the moment I came out of the public dock and that meant more to me than anything I could have ever imagined. At first I thought it may have been because you and your father had come to accept each other. That maybe the strife between you two had finally cooled down after so long, but I was wrong when I could still see the tension between you.

"I had hoped beyond all hope that you two could get along," she raises a hand to stop any attempts of him to speak, "and I know you try, both of you, but you two are too much alike and too different to be able to see a compromise." She takes a drink from her glass to wet her throat and Garrus knows she still has more to say, so he waits silently to let her continue.

"I'm not disappointed in the fact that you two haven't become closer, I could never be disappointed in you, but I was disappointed that the happiness seemed to be a façade. That the Spirits hadn't granted you the peace of mind you deserve." She looks up to his eyes with a soft smile, "But then I've spent the whole evening with you so far and I see now that it isn't a façade. Whatever, or whoever, you have found has seemed to accomplished what I never could and I can finally see you as I remember, the joyous little boy who saw the potential in the galaxy.

"That is why I don't care who it is or what they are. They make you happy and that is all that matters to me." Her smile becomes less somber and starts to show true mirth, "I wish I could thank them in person, but I'll settle with this."

His mother has always been the best at reading him, even better than himself, and to know that she can see the change he actually feels from his time with Jane leaves him stunned. "Thank you, mom, that…that means more than you think."

His mother chuckles, her deep vocals purring in love. "Just know that no matter what, I approve of this person. You tell me about them when you're ready, I will not force you…though you know I would get it out of you."

He snorts at her grin, "Yeah you would. You've always been able to get me to confess to everything, every time."

He does really want to tell his mother, but if he did she would certainly hear his vocals and know the extent of his connection to Jane, which is something he hasn't even been able to explain to himself.

How would he explain to his mother that even though his heart wants to take Jane as his bondmate, he doesn't even know if she feels the same? Would his mother even understand that humans aren't as simple? With her just proclaiming how glad she is to see him in this state, would it really be best to make her question if it'll last?

Not only that, but he's unsure if telling her anything about Jane would necessarily mean that it would just stay between them. He doesn't think his mother would purposefully tell his greatest secret to just anyone, but he doesn't know the extent of his parent's relationship and if they ever keep anything from each other. It wouldn't really be fair to his mother to force her to keep his lie away from his father.

It is because of that that Garrus accepts the out she gives him when she changes the subject to more mundane topics.

Their dinners come to the table as she shares ideas of what she wants to do with her last day on the Citadel. As she talks of shops she can't stand to miss out on he promises to take her, all the while considering her earlier statement of how he should take someone to a place like this.

_Mom was definitely on to something with taking someone out to a place like this…_he thinks between bites of his meal, _Now to figure out a way to pull it off_.


	44. Chapter 44

~Jane~

When Garrus had sent her a message earlier today saying that she was all clear to return to the apartment later tonight, but to be sure to 'wear something nice' she had no clue what in the hell he meant.

Wear something nice wasn't really something in her vocabulary. Sure she knew what that meant, but ever since joining the military anything she ever wore that didn't involve a uniform was catered to being comfortable to wear, not 'nice.'

Did he have some grand scheme planned up that meant her casual shirt or tank wasn't going to cut it? Just what the hell had happened while she was away that he would even know what classified as something 'nice' to wear?

With a shake of her head in utter confusion, Jane had given in and traveled to a boutique to look for something a little less casual than her usual outfits.

When she enters the store, she immediately waves off the approaching Asari, assuring both herself and the overly enthusiastic attendant that she will call if she needs the help. She doesn't want to spend all day shopping and isn't completely oblivious to fashion, her days working for the Reds taught her enough she figures.

Knowing that she can't pull off the same sexy numbers as most of the women shopping here, she completely bypasses the dresses. She's spent too long strengthening her muscles in her arms and legs to know that showing them off won't really classify as 'wearing something nice.' _Does Garrus even know what looks good on a human woman?_

As Jane looks through the clothing, already having a pair of black pants in hand to try, she actually feels a bit excited for tonight.

It's been a long time since she's ever felt like fancying herself up and usually it was just to look good for a first impression at a bar. The last time she has ever tried to pick someone up was before Akuze and that was over five years ago.

She certainly isn't the type of woman to enjoy shopping for what seems like such a frivolous thing as fancy clothes, but she can't deny that a small part of her likes being able to get dressed up and feel like a different person.

_No, that's not right… I get to feel like a different me,_ Jane admits with an inward smile.

Since before the horrible disaster on Akuze, getting dressed up and pretending to not be a hard soldier was a type of guilty pleasure for Jane. One she didn't really notice she had until getting the opportunity to bring it back because of Garrus' insistence.

She can't help the wide smile that appears on her face as she takes back a handful of blouses to try on and that stays long after she purchases her outfit for the night.

Garrus may or may not know what hits him when she sees him. Either way, she can certainly see the appeal to buying some more outfits like this in the future.

VvVvV

Jane arrives at Garrus' apartment at the exact time he had sent her earlier through ping, knowing that it was well after he was off work and wondering just why he wanted her to show up at a scheduled appointment, so to speak.

She followed his rules and got dressed before leaving her hotel in her black slacks, suede black heels, and dark green blouse. Her blouse had a deep neckline and cinched at her waist, flowing loose around her hips. The sleeves had slits to bare her shoulders and stopped midway between her elbow and wrist.

She pulled her long red locks back into a French braid that fell to just above the curve of her butt and was a bit surprised to see the length considering her hair was usually always either up or so curly that it bounded around her shoulders.

For her makeup, she wanted to stick with a softer touch, knowing that she wasn't having to gussy herself up as if it was her past experiences. She left a soft, earthy brown shadowing around her eyes and painted her lips with a soft pink lipstick. Anything more felt like she was trying to get into someone's bed and not have a nice night with her boyfriend, not that she really had any experience in that.

With a deep breath drawn in, Jane prepares herself before activating the door chime to his apartment. Odds are if he has something planned he doesn't just want her to barge in and possibly ruin it.

She hears the unique footsteps of his gait approach and the door opens to reveal him in a similar manner of dress and she can't stop her eyes from widening at the sight of him in what must be the equivalent of her own outfit.

He's wearing what seems to be a Turian version of slacks in a light beige color with a dark charcoal shirt with dark pinstripes that flow over the curve of his chest and down his waist. She's also happy to see him going without gloves on his hands, as she knows that that custom isn't typical before Turians joined the galactic community.

His mandible flicks out in a smile and she catches him checking her out as well. "Jane," he purrs, "you look amazing."

"You aren't so bad yourself," she smirks and he offers his hand, taking her inside so the door can close between them and the rest of the world.

He pulls her to his chest, where she can feel the vibrations of his chest through his plates and clothes, and leans down enough to press his plates to her lips. They kiss, his soft nips against her lips and her light suckles against the edges of his mouth, before he pulls away, motioning her to follow.

"I've been looking into more human customs and I found something interesting…thought you might like to try it." He softly takes her hand and leads her to the lightly dimmed living room.

The couch is pushed further away from the vidscreen and in the open space lies the dining table, its legs lowered to that it lays closer to the ground and two place settings laid out. Each setting has silverware, one with some for her and the other for him, two wine glasses, and a folded cloth napkin.

"I found contradicting information on how to do this, but current trends say this is a new way humans are eating now and Turians do this too, so it works out." He motions to her place and offers his hand for support as she kneels down. "I know we can't really go out and do this, so I thought I'd treat you to one at home."

She's astonished at the fact that all this seems like they're actually having a date, not only the first for the two of them together but also the first for even her. She looks up to the sound of a wine bottle being opened as he kneels beside her. "Wow, Garrus." He takes her wine glass and starts to pour. "You put this together?"

He grunts in amusement, "Thought I just tended to look up human porn?" He fills his own glass before setting the bottle on the table and getting up to move to the kitchen. "Why didn't you tell me that humans had dates?"

She waits for him to come back to share the first sip with him, instead watching his back and shoulders move to the stove where he must have been keeping something warm. "It's not like I was expecting you to go all out. I didn't even know Turians had dates."

He returns with two plates, Jane is unable to see their contents from his height above her, chuckling. "We aren't savages, Jane. Of course we treat our loved ones to nice dinners and events…it's typical of mates, anyway."

He sets a plate down in front of her, returning the loving smile she directs up at him, before taking his own to his place. As he drops down to sit, she looks at what surprise he brought for her.

She can feel her own mouth water when her eyes fall on the most appetizing plate of Shrimp Fra Diavolo she's ever seen. Each piece of shrimp, which clearly a testament against their name by their size, is butterflied and perfectly seared. She can smell the spice from the sauce, with thin slices of pepper, garlic and tomato, and can't wait to feel the burn with each taste.

"Damn, Garrus," she looks up to his smirk. "Where did you find this?"

He has his own plate of what must be something expensive because it's raw, just like he always likes it, and sits on a bed of what looks like a type of puree. Odds are that if he was as in depth in researching date food as he is with everything else, he probably got himself something just as fancy as he got her.

He chuckles as he takes his napkin into his lap, a strange sight and something she's never seen a Turian do, but she takes it for him trying to do everything as a human would. She can't help but admire the very attempt at him trying to mix their two people's ideas and customs into something they can share.

"Remember when we went to go watch that live performance before my mom visited?" He waits for her memory to catch up, and she nods in understanding when it does, before continuing. "You pointed out a restaurant that served a certain type of human cuisine, Italian I think you called it?"

She gasps at the sudden realization that yes, she did in fact point out such a place. "Garrus, that place was expensive…I said that the reason I wanted to go but couldn't was because I didn't think I'd be able to afford anything!"

He snorts and waves a hand dismissively, flicking a mandible. "I know, but you described a dish you wanted and I saw how much it would've meant to have it, so I got it for you." He grabs his glass, untouched by either of them, and looks at the dark liquid. "I told you I'd find a way to make things up to you…and I don't tend to go back on my promises."

Jane blinks, unable to come up with words to thank him – or rip his ass – for going through so much to make a nice evening for them. She quickly decides the best way is to lighten the evening and takes up her glass, "I can't believe you remembered what I said and actually managed to find it."

Garrus looks to her with mock insult, "I can't believe you think so little of my comprehensive skills. I am a detective, you know…"

She can't help the laugh at his expression. "Add that to your many claims of excellence that I have yet to see in person." She holds her glass up, "But, truly, thank you for this, Garrus. It is certainly a great surprise to come home to." He hums and clinks his own against hers with a soft tink before they each take a sip.

The wine is smooth, with a slightly sweet taste in its undertones, and she hums in appreciation. "Damn, this is good. I'm not much for wine, but that's impressive."

"Thought you might like it." He motions to her plate, "Go ahead, let me know what you think."

She moves her attention to her plate, trying to decide which to try first, a shrimp or the linguine, but decides _what the hell_ and takes a piece of the shellfish off the plate and to her mouth.

She takes a bite and closes her eyes at the delicious hint of spice and perfect amount of heat that flow over her taste buds. The shrimp itself is perfectly cooked, with a slight crisp and not at all chewy or rubbery from being overcooked. She can't help the hum that escapes her lips as she swallows and her eyes open just in time to see the flick of Garrus mandible, obviously proud.

"I take it you like it?" He smirks, knowing full well the answer, as his hands idly prod his own meal with his utensil.

"Oh shut up you," she mock scowls, to which he responds with a purred chuckle.

The two continue to eat and share stories of what transpired while apart. He tells her of the time he spent with his mother and she talks about her various trips to the stores around the Ward. They both have a laugh at the fact that she seems to have now turned into a glorified window shopper, where when they met she barely knew a thing about the Citadel shops.

When their meals are done and she moves to take her empty plate to the kitchen, Garrus gently takes her plate from her hands, moving to the kitchen with the dirty dishes and leaving her to pour each of them another glass.

He returns with a single plate in his hand but it is smaller than their previous two. He takes his glass from his spot in front of her and sits at her side, placing the plate between them. Sitting on the cool plate is a large slice of Tiramisu surrounded with slices of both of their favorite fruits, both dextro and levo.

"You really went all out, didn't you?" She smiles softly, her chest tight with emotion she can't define, and touches her hand to the warm plates of his face.

His presses against her palm and looks to her with blue eyes, his inaudible rumble flowing through her arm and down to her stomach. "Of course."

A soft laugh escapes her lips and she scoots her body closer to his, "You know I've been needing to apologize."

"Oh?" He quirks a brow plate, "What for?"

"The whole time we've been admitting that we love each other, I've thought it strange that I was the one who always had to say it first." She drops her hand but lets him take it in his own, "I thought it was because you didn't like saying it or maybe you had some kind of reluctance to say it first, like maybe you didn't feel the same, but then I looked it up…you've been saying it all along haven't you?"

When she was in the hotel she was curious about some of the odd quirks she had noticed Garrus had, so she decided to go to the extranet for answers. Outside of her searches of a sexual nature, she hadn't really considered looking at information about Turians because she figured she could always ask her very own Turian friend and get a straight answer direct from the source.

When it came down to her doubts that maybe he didn't share in her feelings, however, she couldn't really rely on getting his answer without feeling like she was putting him on the spot.

With that, she looked up ways that Turians showed they cared for one another and despite the usual confusion and jumble of misinformation that usually comes with the extranet, she found that he was, indeed, telling her but she just didn't know it.

"That rumbling," she puts her free hand against his chest, "the one I can't really hear but can feel in my gut. That's you saying it, isn't it?"

He covers her hand with his own and the vibration intensifies combined with a soft thrumming -_happiness_, she notes. "Yeah," he leans forward and she moves to meet him as he nuzzles against her forehead, "I'm sorry I haven't been saying it aloud."

She leaves a soft kiss on his lips when they pull apart. "There's no need to apologize. We each have our own ways of showing it."

He huffs and they switch their attention to the dessert before them, but not before he squeezes her hand once and says, "And there's no need to apologize to me either."

They share the dessert, each having fruit from the other's chirality and comparing the ways their taste buds interpret the foreign substance as well as he having the chance to experience the coffee flavored cake.

When all that remains are slices of various fruit, he takes a slice of strawberry, but instead of bringing it to his own mouth, he brings it to hers, nudging her hand away as she tries to take it from his fingers. Knowing what he wants, she takes the morsel into her mouth, sucking at his fingers before he can pull them away and gets a deep rumble in response.

As she chews the strawberry in her mouth, she picks up a dark purple fruit of his own and scoots closer to him so that their sides now touch, his body leaning closer to her with an arm behind her. She takes the fruit and offers it to him, a thrumming starting in his chest like that of an old engine as it slips past his plates. Their eyes never leave the other and she feels his tongue wrap around the tips of her fingers, mimicking her own action in his own way, and she can't help the quiet gasp and quickening of her pulse.

Jane grabs another piece of fruit without looking, not wanting to break off from his intense gaze, and moves to face him more as she brings up another morsel to feed him. Before she brings it into his reach, she gets an idea and changes her approach, taking the fruit to her own mouth instead.

With the sweet fruit, and judging by the taste it's one of the juicier ones which might actually be to her advantage, slightly peeking from between her lips, she leans to him.

When their mouths meet she bites the fruit at the same time that she presses her lips against his plates. She can feel the juice escape her lips, but before she can think that it'll dribble down her chin, he catches it with his own tongue.

He then tilts his head to fit closer to her mouth and flicks his mandibles against her skin, softly directing her to let him in. His tongue is swift and takes her the moment she gives him room, caressing her own and mixing his own taste with that of the sweet fruit.

He wraps his tongue with her for a moment before drawing back, allowing her to swallow and pant as he reaches to the plate. She doesn't see what he does because she can't keep her eyes from his beautiful ones, dark and pupils wide with growing desire as she's sure hers must be, but she can suddenly smell the strong sweetness of another fruit.

He then runs his finger from clavicle up to curve behind her ear, a wet chill in its wake, and she has a quick moment to grasp his intentions before he dips his head and follows the same path with his warm tongue. She gasps as he take the lobe of her ear between his plates and gives it light pressure, a light growl showing his approval at her reaction.

Her hands move to his chest as he repeats the actions of painting a stripe of the fruit's juice before following with his tongue on the other side of her neck. Her fingers clinch in the soft material when he adds a tug to her lobe and she can't stop her hands as they seem to drift to the releases of his shirt.

He chuckles at her eagerness, but continues to nibble and lick along her neck. One hand caresses whatever side of her neck he isn't bathing in attention while the other moves out of her sight behind her. As his shirt loosens enough so that she can finally touch his chest and torso, kneading the gaps between plates but not directly attacking his waist.

When he paints a trail of juice along her skin, his fingers move downward, following an imaginary keel bone and lifting as it comes to where her breasts are pressed together. When she thinks he's going to follow the path with his tongue, he surprises an undignified squeak – which she will deny all knowledge off – from her by squeezing the fruit he still holds and letting the juices flow down her cleavage.

He growls and flicks a mandible out at her reaction before bringing the fruit to his mouth. He pulls her to him and she willingly opens her lips to him without needing prompt. His mandibles flicker against her cheeks and an approving growl enters her mouth alongside his rough tongue and they tangle together, swapping the fruit and its remaining juices between their mouths before he pulls away, leaving her with the morsel.

He then ducks his head, nipping once above her clavicle before tracing his wonderful tongue down the path of his fingers. She leans slightly back to give him a better angle and when his reaches her breasts, she gasps at the feeling of his long, coarse tongue dipping between her breasts.

She gasps as she feels a rush of heat down her belly as she feels his tongue curve slightly under one breast, shocked at the sheer length. _Oh the things he could do with that tongue_

"Garrus," she all but moans between pants. "I think this would be a lot better if we didn't have so many clothes on."

She thinks that her only response is going to be the rumble from his throat, but eventually he pulls back. "You're right," his voice is laced with subvocals and almost too difficult to understand. "Get this off before I rip it off."

She mock scowls, but removes her hands from his shirt so that they can each divest themselves of clothes. They have to shift away to undo their pants, but after tossing the last of their clothes, underclothes and all, to whatever ends of the room their attentions are back on each other.

Jane moves to kneel over Garrus' lap, giving both of them access the other and leaving both of their hands free. He pulls her head down and pulls her into a deep kiss, stroking her tongue with his as his free hand circles her nipple with his thumb.

Her own hands are not idle in all this as she strokes the back of his head, just below his fringe, and tends to his waist with the other. She alternates her attentions on his waist between firm kneading and messaging, strokes against the soft hide, and a new sensation of light scratches. He pulls away with a growl to gasp for air and retaliates with a pinch of her nipple, just enough edge to the motion to excite.

He dives to her neck to caress it with his tongue and mouth, dropping each hand lower so that the one from her neck now runs the tips of its talons along her erect nipple and the other teasingly strokes along her moist folds. She bites her lip to hold in the moan as she fells the plates of his knuckle run along her slit and pass over her clit. The bastard must be able to hear her hesitance because he doesn't give her pause, stopping to pay attention her clit, fluctuating between circling it and soft passes directly over it.

When she finally can't stand it anymore and throws her head back with a throaty moan, he nips approvingly against her neck before roughly tracing the bite with his tongue.

Feeling like he has too much of an upper hand in their situation despite her being over him, she bends her head down and gives him a nudge, and a soft press with the fingers of both hands into each of his sensitive spots, in silent request. He responds with a growling moan and lifting his head to give her the access to his neck she asked for, to which she rewards him by running her tongue up from the start of his cowl and up to under his chin.

She laves his skin in tandem with the efforts of her hands and in response to his own actions, relishing the in feeling of his rumbles and purrs both to her lips and tongue through his neck, and to her abdomen through that bass vibration of his proclamation of love.

He shifts the hand at her pussy and soon she feels an entirely new sensation that has her motions faltering. She knows the feeling from what he's done before to other parts of her body, but she's never imagined letting him try it with her more sensitive areas, for obvious reasons.

Between her legs, he runs the tips of his talons lightly against her outer lips, silently testing the waters and waiting to see her reaction. She shifts from his neck lock gazes with him once again and sees the question in his eyes.

She knows he would never hurt her, intentional or not, and some part of her is actually more turned on by the fact that she's dating what could easily be called one of the deadly races in the galaxy than she ever wants to admit aloud.

She smiles warmly, sharing with him a deep kiss, before shifting enough to let him try what his wants to do. She ends up laying down across his legs, her knees bent and feet planted along his sides, and leaving herself completely open to his experimenting, waiting with baited breath.

She almost jumps from the sensation of the tips of his talons stroking lightly up her labia. He moves one hand to hold her hips down.

As he lightly strokes her folds, she doesn't notice the fingers of his other hand move closer before he pulls a gasp from her lips with a stroke of talon over her sensitive clit. The touch feels like electricity coming from his fingertips to shoot up her body, and she moans at the new feeling, her toes clinching against the floor.

He rumbles in appreciation and starts a rhythm of interchanging talon tip and knuckle against her folds and around her clit, building her up to the edge faster than she could ever imagine without even penetration. He dips into her folds with a knuckle, covering it in fluid, and coats her clit when needed and soon Jane's breath is ragged and her chest is heaving, just at the point of no return.

With his hand on her hip, Garrus pulls her closer to him and circles her clit with the callus of his thumb, winding the circle tighter and closer together until he's stroking directly over it. With one final, hard stroke across it that's immediately followed by a pass of his talon, Jane falls over the precipice with a high pitched moan. Her back arches off his legs and her legs squeeze around whatever part of him that's between them.

As she's coming down, she can feel him pull her hips closer and moves to sit up, grateful for his hands helping her in her task since her body feels like jelly. She smiles when she feels his slick organ against her thigh and leans to him, claiming his mouth in distraction as her hand moves lower.

She bypasses grabbing his dick outright and instead forks her fingers and strokes the flesh at its base, pulling a gasp of his own from his lips. She pulls back with a chuckle to stare into his dark eyes as she puts slight pressure against his hot flesh and squeezes her fingers against his base.

She takes him in hand, starting at the base with a firm squeeze and strokes up before swirling her thumb over the tip of his sensitive head. His hands move to cup her ass and he pulls her closer while crossing his legs as he licks along her neck, taking in the taste of her.

He pants, his hot breath against her sweat slick skin, as she shifts up and raises over him. With a final stroke of his cock, she lowers herself down, using her legs to lower herself down to his base.

He moans out a low growl once she's completely seated and she wraps her legs around him to cross behind his back. Her chest heaves as she fights against her second wave from just the feeling of him stretching her and the sensation of his blood pumping against her walls.

Garrus' hands move up to take her head in his hands and he pulls her into a deep kiss. As his tongue wraps around hers, Jane tightens her inner muscles to squeeze him and he moans, dropping one hand to pull her closer to him.

Feeling like she's ready, Jane arches her body, leaning slightly back on her hands and pressing him against her G-spot. She starts to grind slowly against him and moans at the delicious friction the position creates.

Garrus, not one to sit and let her do all the work, drops his hands, one to her breast and the other to her clit to circle the bundle of nerves, to steadily work her back up to the flood. The added sensation of his harmonics flowing their connection has her quickly finding it hard to hold herself up, so she's relieved to see his tongue subconsciously scent the air as it tends to signal he's close.

She pulls herself up and he takes hold of her, one hand to her back and the other on her hip, to pull her into him as he thrusts in time with her, his pace making up for her uncontrollable spasms so close to the end.

It's when she feels him pulse and flex within her walls that she can't hold back any longer and her orgasm hits her full force, throwing her head back with a scream.

Right as his movements stutter, he takes her neck in his mouth and lets her feel the sensation of the vibrations of his deep moans at his climax, allowing her to feel as if she possessed her own orgasm harmonics by sharing his own as he fills her.

Once they come down from their own highs, he releases her throat to accept her tender kiss. She caresses his mandibles as she suckles on his tongue, showing without words how much she cares for him and feeling like his own hands rubbing her back and purrs are saying the same.

She doesn't know how long they spend like this but eventually her nerves calm down enough to remind her that they are still connected. Not wanting to end this night anytime soon, Jane squeezes her inner muscles around him, seeing to gauge his reaction.

His responding groan sends shivers down her already sweat chilled body. "You better be ready for what doing that is going to cause." He looks into her eyes and she can't stop the smile that must look ridiculous on her flushed face.

She gives him a quick peck on his upper nose plate and squeezes him again. "Oh, I'm ready. Time to test that Turian stamina some more."

He is past words once she assures him as he pulls her close and begins to caress a breast and attack her hypersensitive neck with his mouth. She throws her head back to give him more room and moans when he begins to thrust inside her, deciding that this isn't a bad way to end a great date.


	45. Chapter 45

~Garrus~

While in the middle of a report, Garrus' visor omits a soft ping, inaudible to his fellow Officer who shares his office, and he flicks his mandible in a knowing smile.

Anytime he is sent a message from another Officer, it immediately sounds from his Tool but he hadn't been able to keep himself from chatting with Jane when his shift ran slow or he was being buried under paperwork. He had sent up a private connection between the two and whenever she would ping, it would automatically send an alert to his visor.

Quickly glancing at his office mate, Garrus activated his Omni-Tool and read her message. "Want to meet up for noodles on your lunch?"

Garrus checks the time, noting that he is due for his time off, but gives a slight shake when his hopes are dashes by the fact that he still has the rest of his report to complete. "I still have more work to do. I won't be done for at least another hour, maybe two."

"I could always wait for you. I don't think I'll die of starvation by then."

He can't help the quick flick of his mandible at her obvious exaggeration. Why she always waited until she was starving before eating he'll never know. "Alright, give me some time and I'll message you to see if you're still alive."

"Cough, cough…I'll try…" With a soft shake and a flicker of a smile, Garrus changes focus and moves to working on completing his report with renewed vigor.

Hopefully he can be done with it before he'll have to admit he won't be able to make it and send her off to eat alone. He's sure they'd both enjoy the company and he would certainly like not having to eat something out of the break room synthesizer.

Thanks to the boost of determination in efforts to meet with Jane, Garrus is able to stick with his report and manages to complete it within the hour like he had hoped. He sends a message to Jane letting her know just as he writes up the last lines. Unfortunately, he hadn't considered the amount of time it would take for him to get approval to leave, since it was now after his usually allotted lunch.

While he waits for a superior officer to send him an approval for leave, which already has him angry because the approval itself adds more time than if he would have just left, he gets a soft ping in his visor again. He is alone in his office, his roommate having already left to his own work, so he doesn't bother trying to hide it as he pulls up his Omni-Tool.

"Should I meet you there or meet you outside of C-Sec?" He had already warned her of the need for approval but it seems like she's getting a bit anxious.

"Sorry, still waiting for approval. I could've been out by now by the rate this is going." He growls softly in his disapproval of the idiotic regulation as if she were in the room.

There is a pause before he receives her next message and Garrus thinks it's almost like she is here with him. He can clearly picture her nibbling on her bottom lip as she weighs her options. Then she offers, "What if I went and picked it up and brought it to the Presidium side of the Academy?"

He flicks his mandible in a soft smile, amazed that she still wants to meet up despite the mess his approval is causing. He is about to thank her for sitting through the pain when he gets a message sounding from his Tool.

He glances at the sender and with the reveal that it's from his father, he huffs in exasperation. _Why did I ever let Jane convince me to become an Investigator again?_

Preparing for the worst, Garrus pulls up his father's message, hoping beyond hope that is isn't a lecture about staying later than his allotted time. He quickly scans the message, passing over the usual 'make sure things are right' that always dots his conversations with his father and quickly catches the statement stating, "Turn your report in personally and take the rest of the day."

That sentence causes him to stutter in place and reread the entire section over, making sure his eyes weren't just deceiving him. _It'll be a bad day when a sniper can't see straight and reads his best wishes in his father's disapproval,_ he muses as he carefully goes over the mail.

To his surprise, he is being given the rest of the day off due to the fact that he does not have a pending case at the moment and because his latest big case, the damn Saleon fiasco nearly two months ago, had made him pile on overtime. Not needing to be told twice, Garrus sends a quick message to Jane to go ahead with her plans, wanting to surprise her with his now free rest of the day.

Her acknowledgment comes as a "Hurray! Finally some sweet sustenance!" and he can't help the soft chuckle as he collects his report to take to his superiors. No need to sit around and chat when he has the whole rest of the day to do just that, but in person, once he completes this simple task.

~Jane~

When she arrives to the Presidium ahead of Garrus, she quickly takes possession of the one open bench that rests under the shade of a nearby tree. The Citadel's artificial lighting doesn't really pose harm, but the thought of eating a nice meal under the overhang of the branches feels like a luxury in and of itself so she doesn't fuss over the logistics.

She pulls the two bowls of noodles that she had brought, still hot and smelling of mixed levo and dextro meats, and places them aside in hopes that Garrus will show before they are able to completely cool. Once set aside, she relaxes against the bench's back and takes in the surrounding sights of the Presidium.

She chuckles softly at the contrast between the dignitaries that either mull about, meant to do nothing more than decorate the park, or rush through the area, no mind for who may happen to stand in their way. She's not sure which of the two polar opposites she would ever be if put in the same position, the ones with no care or those too stressed to stop and smell the roses, and finds the thought even more amusing.

_I'd sure feel bad for whoever put me in charge. I'd suck as a politician_, she muses as she glances over her shoulder to the elevator that leads to C-Sec Academy, checking to see if Garrus will make an appearance.

As she's turning her attention back to what she likes to dub as 'people-watching,' her attempts to make Garrus show by means of thinking hard enough not panning out, she hears her Omni-Tool chime.

_Well, close enough, I guess,_ she thinks herself as she pulls the Interface to see if her assumption of the sender is correct. She chuckles at the news that it is in fact the person she's expecting and his message states that he's on his way into the elevator now.

She closes the Tool and moves to containers of noodles, figuring that she can give him more time to eat if she already has his food open and utensils ready once he makes it out of the long elevator ride.

Just as she gets his food open and ready to eat, she hears the familiar footsteps she's gotten so acquainted with approach the bench before the sound of his soft rumble reaching her ears.

"Lunch and nice company?" She looks up with a smile to see the smirk in his mandible. "Sure wish I knew what I did so I could do it again."

He sits next to her on the bench, a professional distance about and not nearly as close as they both crave and want, and she hands him his meal with a raised brow and a smirk of her own. "It had to have been the fact that you left me to starve to death…" she trails off her thought, leaning to get her own meal out and holding in her laughter at his resounding huff of frustration.

"That's coming from the woman who seems to always be eating and blaming it on being a biotic." She throws him a mock hurt expression and he chuckles.

She can't help the quick snort no matter how hard she's trying to keep the hurt act up, but quickly composes herself and says dejectedly, "I guess I just can't help how much of a frail human being I am…"

He answers with a snort of his own around his bite of food and shallows before responding. "You're the farthest from frail…at least by squishy human standards."

At this, she actually scowls and shoves her chopsticks in his container to grab a piece of whatever dextro meat he has before quickly pulling it out and popping it in her mouth. She stares straight into his eyes as she makes a show of chewing the morsel extra slowly, but he just shrugs her off with a shake of his head, clearly unimpressed.

Accepting his call of her bluff, she moves to her own meal with vigor. Of course she exaggerated on just how hungry she was just to rile him, but she was actually hungry enough to consider the thought of food better than the thought of winning their little back-and-forth, for now.

She hears a deep chuckle from beside her and Jane, mid bite and with noodles hanging from her lips, looks sideways to him with a raised eyebrow before biting down and using her chopsticks to ease the noodles back into the broth. Once she is no longer in danger of dripping broth down the front of her shirt, she throws him a glare which only makes him chuckle more.

"Calm down, Jane," he says as he takes a leisurely bite of his own lunch. "We aren't on a time schedule."

At that she exclaims a short laugh, "I doubt C-Sec would agree with that."

He hums with a smirk, clearly knowing something she doesn't. "Well now, that's where you're wrong." He shifts on the bench so that his stance is more relaxed. "Since I'm such a good employee, I've been granted the rest of the day off."

She smiles around her food at his confident air of satisfaction as he brings up another bite. "They kicked you out, didn't they?"

She laughs at his sputter, only to receive an irritated mandible click once he recovers which doesn't help his case and only makes her laugh more, forgoing any attempt to eat and most likely choke.

He huffs and returns to his meal with a mock pout. "They did not 'kick me out,' I just had too many hours stacked up so they let me off."

Jane snickers at the sight of him clad in the black and blue light armor and sulking like a child, she can't believe she's thinking this but it looks damn cute. She nudges his leg with her own boot, cooing playfully, "There, there, I believe you."

He glances over to her and she bites her lip to hold back the smile. She catches his mandible flicker outward in a smile of his own and he shakes his head with a soft huff before turning his attention back to his food.

They eat the remainder of their meal in comfortable silence, no longer in any hurry and just taking in the calm of the Presidium. Once finished and their remaining trash is taken care of and properly disposed, they each relax on their own side of their bench when Jane sudden gets an idea.

"Hey," she sits up and looks directly to Garrus, who has perked up from her excitement. "Let's people-watch."

"What's 'people-watch?'" He shifts uncomfortably and Jane can only imagine what that must sound like in his own language to get him so anxious.

She pats him on the shoulder with a smirk, "That, my dear friend, is the amazing pass time where in you make up funny things and stories about total strangers without them knowing. A game at which I am a master."

His brow plate quirks up in skepticism. "And that's fun or something?"

She shifts back to her relaxed position with a dismissive huff. "Damn right it is. You're missing out." She lifts a brow and turns her head to him. "Unless you're too much of a stiff to play…I'd understand if you don't want to." She smirks. "Wouldn't want it to affect your _Turian sensibilities_."

His growls playfully in acceptance of her dare and looks out across the Presidium. "You talk a big game." He returns her smirk with his signature confidence. "You ready to hand over your title, _master_?"

_Master, huh? Might not be too bad calling him that…_ Jane quickly snaps her attention out of the gutter to take up his challenge and start.

The two lose track of time as they toss the most ridiculous stories they could think up for the unknowing Presidium patrons at each other, trying to top the other. It's a tight race and despite her best efforts, Jane can feel her defeat at hand.

She would never openly admit this, though, because the damn Turian is definitely cheating. It was almost impossible to get a laugh from the plated bastard and she blames it all on his stupid Turian ability to become all stoic at the drop of a hat.

_I'd be winning if I had the ability to make my face as immovable as stone,_she pouts before his voice cuts into her thinking.

"What are those humans doing over there?" He voice doesn't have that jovial quality, instead he sounds genuinely curious.

"Hey, it's your turn," she remarks as she turns her attention towards where he's motioning. "You can't throw a hard one at me unless you're giving..." When her eyes finally land on the only humans in the direction motioned, she stops her thought mid-sentence.

Standing far enough to not hear Jane and Garrus' conversation, but close enough for Jane to know exactly what they're doing, stand a woman with a man on one knee before her. The woman, Jane notes she's young by her soft face, clearly holds back from screaming her excitement as she bounds on her feet, jumping into her partner's arms when he stands.

Turning back to Garrus, Jane thinks about how to go about explaining that they just witnessed a marriage proposal. It's a weird concept, even to her, to have a guy take a woman somewhere nice and get down on the dirty floor just to ask her something that he could say just as well standing up.

Finally figuring that she's better off not over thinking it and just letting him ask questions as she goes, she explains, "That was what humans call a marriage proposal."

"Out in the open? Is that normal?" Garrus tilts his head in confusion, his eyes shifting from her own to the couple.

"Yeah, that's normal or at least that's what some people like to do." She relaxes back in the seat, turning her own attention to the couple as they are surrounded by curious passersby of various species. "Some like to go all out with a fancy dinner and just pop the question as the two of them or with family and close friends. Others like to make this big show, but I think that seems like it's for more selfish reasons."

He seems to mull over the information, his mandible wavering a bit in silent thought. "And why does he get down on the ground?"

She shrugs, not too sure herself. "Beats me." She snorts at a quick thought. "Maybe to assure his future wife that, yes, she is now the boss?"

She admits that the joke probably went straight over his head if his confused look at her is any indication. "You have a hierarchy in bonding?"

_Probably making things worse by confusing the poor guy,_ she silently scolds herself as she straightens up with a light cough. "Well…not exactly. I mean it's a pretty equal relationship, but it's just a joke that when a guy gets married he 'hands his balls over.'"

His mandibles flicker in silent question and she drops her forehead into her palm, "Look, Garrus, I think that it means that a man is symbolically showing his commitment to a woman, but I'm not sure. I, personally, don't think that's a good idea to go into a relationship with since they," she waves vaguely towards the couple now lost in a crowd, "should be on equal grounds with one another, but that's their business."

Garrus seems to contemplate over the thought. He then turns to her and a mandible flicked in a soft smile. "I think I understand. It's just confusing to see humans be so public about their private relationships."

"I take it Turians do things differently?"

He nods. "I've already found that humans seem to have more steps to a relationship that Turians do, but I think that has a lot to do with the fact that you can't smell each other or have vocal cues to go off of. When Turians want to bond, they already know it without having to use grand gestures."

Jane contemplates over that. She never thought that maybe the way their relationship was could be different from how he was accustomed. If he was out of his comfort zone he sure didn't show it and she had to commend his adaptability to fit her crazy human ways of being a relationship.

His comments still brought up a good question, though, and she turned to him to get the answer. "If Turians usually bypass all the trivial things that humans have, is there anything that you have that shows when two Turians are bonded?" He looks to her with a head tilt and she explains, "You probably couldn't see from here, but that man," she waves the now dispersing crowd, "he was holding a little box in his hand and in that box was a ring. Humans wear rings to show they are married," she points to her ring finger, "one for the woman when they are engaged and one for each of them when they become husband and wife."

Garrus nods, his eyes brightening with understanding and his mandible wavers in a soft smile. "Turians don't have items to show they are bonded. We mark our mates with our teeth." He motions to his mouth. "All of us have individually unique bite patterns, so we leave a scar on our bondmate where others can see. I guess it is kind of a barbaric way to mark one's territory." He shrugs.

She smiles and returns with her own shrug. "Not much different from putting a metal band around your finger, and you can't remove a scar if you want to cheat on your spouse like you could a ring." He looks to her questioningly and she shakes her head in a dismissive 'don't ask,' so he drops it.

Instead, he stretches his legs and asks another question. "So if that was a proposal, what is a wedding like?"

She snorts, _oh where would I begin?_ "It's anything from a big ceremony with hundreds of guests and a huge, very long, very boring ceremony, to a small gathering of family and friends, to just the couple going in front of an official and signing a certificate that legally joins them. It all depends on the preference of the bride and groom on the size and even if they want it to have a religious proceeding or not. We humans tend to be very diverse in our ideas of marriage ceremonies and I don't really even know everything about the possibilities." She looks over to connect to his blue eyes. "What about Turians? Do you celebrate becoming bondmates?"

"With family and friends we do, though it's more a celebration with food and festivities as a time to congratulate the two and rejoice in 'two souls becoming one.'" His last words seem different to Jane's ears, but she can't quite place the emotion that she hears in his voice.

"I never would have thought Turians would take that view on something like that." In all honesty, she had assumed that it was just like a party to celebrate a growing family much like a human reception, but it seems to delve into the spiritual side of his culture.

"Turians see everything as having a Spirit associated with it, living things, groups of people, families…The belief is that when two people bond, their bond gives form to a Spirit that then follows their future family and influencing everything they, and their children down the line, touch from then on." He looks off out over the stretch of the Presidium. "I never really put much consideration into Spirits but it's a nice way for some to look at things."

Jane nods in agreement, silent for a while before lightening the mood by smirking to ask, "Do Turians have honeymoons?"

Garrus looks to her, his eyes subtly narrowing as he must be reading the screen of his visor for the translation. After a moment his eyes relax and he responds. "Yes but not quite the same as humans, it looks like. It seems that humans take it as a vacation to spend time not only with each other but use it to explore their destination as tourists. Turians have a Seclusion, where the bondmates go off together and spend the entire time together, not caring what's going on outside and just," he shifts uncomfortably, "focused on mating."

Jane bites her lips to keep from smiling at his awkward fidgeting, "Now who's the squeamish prude? Humans do that too on their Honeymoon," she mumbles, but still loud enough for his sensitive ears, "just not 24/7, apparently." He growls in mock anger and kicks softly at her boot. She finally releases her lip to smile at him and he happily smiles back. "Want to head home? Maybe pick up some Ice Cream on the way back?"

He chuckles. "Hungry again? I'm starting to doubt that that is just a biotic thing."

She stands and slaps his leg softly, slowly making her way to the nearest transit hub so he can easily catch up. "Har, har. Pick on the biotic because she's hungry." She can't help the smile at his soft chuckle.

When they are in the cab, he agrees to stop someplace before heading home, even getting something for himself, and arrive at the apartment shortly after, cold desserts in hand, and flop down on the couch to spend the rest of the day doing nothing more than relaxing and watching vids. She's sure they'll come up with more entertaining things to do later on, but for now she's content with his company and his willingness to swap desserts half-way through.


	46. Chapter 46

~Garrus~

Garrus' day at work was long and seemed to drag on endlessly, the only time that helped to pass the time was the knowledge that in another week he would have close to a week of off time. It's not like he had planned it out, but when his supervisor can into his office and put it plainly that he was to either take some time off or lose the free time he acquired, he wasn't going to just miss out on the opportunity.

He finds it somewhat funny that the one thing he seems to have in common with his father is the ability to frustrate his superior because he's too diligent at his work. Unlike his father, though, he is definitely going to take full advantage and revel in the chance to sit at home and enjoy himself, not to mention his hopeful company.

As his apartment door whirs and unlocks, he flicks out a smile at the sound of the vidscreen. _Sounds like Jane shares the sentiment,_ he muses, thinking back to his previous thoughts. The door swishes open and he doesn't hesitate to enter, letting it close at his back.

He can see Jane's green eyes look over the back of the couch, the crinkled skin around her eyes the only thing he can see from this angle at points to her welcoming smile and he flicks a mandible with a soft purr in response.

"Hey, you're home." She moves her attention back to whatever she's watching, her voice risen to make its way to him across the room. "Just in time for the next vid. You should join me, these are great. I thought Turian movies were all boring documentaries, but these are awesome."

He call tell in the tone of her voice and how it seems to become low and drift that she isn't really paying much attention to her words, focusing intently on the screen. He crouches down to unsnap his boots, not wanting to wait any longer in the torturous things than he has to, and stands up to lean against the wall as he pulls them off.

She softly snorts and he glances up to see her peaking over the couch top. "You are such a woman…" He can't help the confused hum and tilts his head at her proclamation. "You shouldn't wear those if they keep hurting your feet. Comfort before beauty, my friend."

His only response is a snort and head shake in dismissal but she has already turned back around and he doesn't even think she hears, which only makes him huff in mock annoyance. He takes his now removed boots and heads to the bedroom to put them away, glad that he didn't wear armor today, instead deciding on the soft C-Sec casuals, because all he wants to do is drop his weight on the couch next to Jane and stay there for the rest of the night.

On his way to do just that, he stops behind the couch and leans down to her neck, flicking his mandible playfully against her sensitive neck. He chuckles at her reaction to squirm away and he notices the container of chocolate ice cream in her hands. "Are you really just eating that out of the container?" She smiles innocently over her shoulder at his question. "At least you're eating, I guess."

She scowls and huffs out a breath before looking back at the screen, clearly not in the mood to play his game and finding whatever she's watching much more entertaining. He softly purrs and nuzzles against the back of her head in silent apology, taking in her scents but tensing at a sudden unmistakable smell on her.

She must notice his shocked confusion because she raises her hand up to stroke the side of his face. "Hey, I'm not really mad. Just come sit with me."

_She must not know,_ he thinks to himself. He has no idea how she couldn't and takes a stronger intake of her scent, opening his mouth slightly to let it drift across his more sensitive tongue just to be sure.

Now he knows he wasn't imagining it as he now tastes the scent from before, blood. She is injured, despite the fact that she looks fine, and he knows she wasn't when he left this morning.

He quickly draws back from her and moves to the front of the couch, directly into her know worried gaze. He doesn't like to think that she feels concerned for him when she's the one who is injured and a comforting rumble escapes his chest as he kneels down before her. She smiles at the sound, but her eyes still have that open confusion in them.

_Is she hiding the fact that she's hurt? Why would she need to?_ He stares into her emerald depths, silently searching for the answer or a way to ask her without upsetting her need to keep it to herself.

He is pulled out of his confusion by an uncomfortable cough from Jane. As he blinks, breaking the intense stare, she silently offers him a spoonful of ice cream, clearly trying to ease the unexplainable tension. He shakes his head and decides to just come out and say it, figuring that that conversation can't possibly be more awkward than the tentative silence.

"Jane," he starts when she takes the spoon to her own mouth. "Are you bleeding?"

If he wasn't so tense he would've found her quick wide-eyed expression comical, but soon it gets replaced by obvious confusion. "Eh?" she blurts out around the metal utensil, her lip curling in puzzlement.

Garrus huffs, _so she doesn't know_, and pulls himself up on the couch beside her. "You smell like…well, blood…your own blood, to be specific. Are you hurt?"

During his stumbling explanation she has removed the spoon from her mouth but it still hovers in her hand before her as she's lost in thought, her eyes narrowed and mouth working on silence, draw out words. Garrus rumbles in confusion at her expression, taking the spoon and container of food from her hands to put them on the floor, but sees that her expression has softened a bit, hopefully in understanding.

Suddenly, Jane's eyes light up in realization of something and she immediately lets out a sharp laugh. Garrus feels completely left out of this new discovery and his mandibles flicker in confusion and anxious discomfort as her sudden outburst.

He's starting to seriously question if his curiosity is worth it and thinking it'd be best to try and change the conversation when she smiles and takes his hand, stroking her thumb over his plates. "Wow, this is awkward. Sorry if I didn't automatically know what you were talking about."

_Well, at least she knows something about it, though she's still horribly vague._ "Are you hurt? Do you need something?"

She snorts. "Not much to do besides let it run its course."

He jerks his head back in shock. "'Run its course?' Jane, what's wrong with you?"

He internally cringes at how his words sound to his own ears but she only chuckles softly. She looks off to the side, her lip quirked to the side that usually means she's deciding how to state something. "Let's see here…" she seems to think aloud, then turns to him. "I'll try to make this easy to understand, but I have no clue how to explain this to another species, let alone my Turian boyfriend."

He nods in silent acknowledge to continue and she takes a deep breath. "Every human woman has a span of their life where they are fertile and able to have babies. During that time, if they don't get pregnant they have what's usually referred to as a period, but its clinical term is menstruation."

Her lip quirks in a cringe and Garrus flickers his mandible in confusion. He's not exactly privy to everything about different species' forms of reproduction, he's never needed it, but he doesn't know what could possibly be in store for her to show such discomfort.

She huffs lightly. "We shed our inner lining of our uterus when we don't get pregnant. It's pretty messy, so that's probably what you're smelling." She turns to him with a weak smile.

"Wait, you're bleeding right now?" His vocals are going crazy with tones of confusion and exasperation as he desperately tries to grasp what she's saying. "Do you need bandages?"

She laughs and pats his hand clasped with hers. "Don't worry, I'm not dirtying the couch or anything. We have things to take care of that."

He sits, deep in thought as he distantly notices his visor scrolling information on 'Human Menstruation' across his peripheral, but decides to ignore it and instead shifts his attention back to Jane. "How come I never smelt this on you before? Does it happen often?"

"Yes and no. You haven't smelt this before because this is the first time I've been around you while on my period." She shifts a bit on her seat and he notices her free hand move to her abdomen to rub softly. "A woman will menstruate every month for about a week, but we have different aids now that help to limit the frequencies. I'm on a six month plan so I only get one every year."

"Do you suffer from anything else?" His vocals have calmed considerably and he relaxes. "Besides the bleeding, of course."

"See, that's where the aids come in." She smirks. "The usual symptoms include cramping, bloating, fatigue, headaches, and serious PMS, or bitchiness as many call it, but the aids really help out on most of those things."

He purrs at the knowledge that she doesn't have to go through all the symptoms she listed, but her hand on her abdomen draws his attention again. "Does it hurt now?" She stops her mindless motion and her brows raise in silent question and he nods to her hand lying still on her stomach in equally silent answer.

She lifts up her hand and huffs a laugh. "Yeah, it hurts right now…It usually always does on the first day, but rubbing it usually helps keep it manageable."

At that, Garrus pulls the hand in his own as he shifts to sit against the couch's arm rest. Jane follows willingly with a raised brow, but he leaves her unanswered with his words and instead pulls her to lay between his legs, her back against his chest.

He lowers he head to her ear and purrs soothingly, taking their still clasped hands and laying them over the same spot she had been caressing just before. "Show me what to do…Maybe I can help you feel better."

From this angle he can only get a glimpse of her smile but she gladly removes her hand from his, only to replace it on top of his. The moments are quiet as he lets her show him how much pressure to use and the speed that best eases her discomfort.

Once he takes control and works in time with his rumbling purr, she moves her hand to relax against his thigh with a soft sigh. "I hope you don't mind that I'm eating all the ice cream."

He chuckles and pulls the container off the floor with his free hand. "It's not all gone."

She gladly takes it and pats the melting substance at the bottom with the flat of her spoon, making little splat noises. "That's another thing…we eat lots of sweets during our periods." She chuckles softly. "I have no idea where it all goes…I started with a whole container and now I'm almost done." She shifts the container to one hand and strokes his mandible with the other. "Don't worry, I'll try to hold back on ripping your head off. I promise. If I slip, just bring me candy."

"Sure thing," he softly agrees and she drops her hand, shifting to fit more comfortably against his plates. He rubs his head against the side of her own, his subvocals singing in contentment. "Is this helping?"

She hums deeply and lets her head drop against his shoulder. "Yes, you're so warm it's like a heating pad with the added bonus of pressure."

Garrus looks down at the woman in his arms, her eyes closed in bliss from his actions. "We clearly underestimated humans on Shanxi," he jokes and she squints open one eye, her laugh hoarse from the angle of her neck.

"You're damn right, you did." She softly agrees. "You should always know not to judge a book by its cover."

"You also can't judge then by what they say because odds are it means the exact opposite." She laughs again and shifts to place the ice cream on the floor, no longer hungry for it, it seems. When she returns, she quietly places his hand back to her stomach in a silent request and he gladly grants it to her, starting again with his soft, but firm, message.

He doesn't know how long passes before he notices that her breathing has slowed and her heart beats in a relaxed rhythm. He softly chuckles at the seemingly uncomfortable position, but finds that he doesn't really want to move, especially if she found it comfortable enough to fall asleep.

He looks down to the woman in his arms, careful not to disturb her, and smiles softly at warmth her closeness brings. She was obviously uncomfortable with telling him earlier about this 'period,' as she calls it, and he now realizes that it wasn't because she was in pain. Despite his disbelief, she seemed to be ashamed of letting him know about something out of her control.

Did she think he would be squeamish of her blood? He had often overheard human coworkers talk of distaste for anything that seemed messy or that involved bodily fluids, despite the fact that it was a natural occurrence. Even though they clearly hadn't been talking about this- at least he doesn't think they were- it seems that it had to go along with human's views of their sexual natures. It must just be another thing that, though natural, was looked down upon in society for humans, despite how strange it must seem.

His pulled from his thoughts by a soft murmur and the feeling of her rolling to better ley against his chest. His chest rumbles in affection and love for the woman in arms, so strong and beautiful despite the ways she may view herself, and he dips his head to nuzzle against the top of her red scalp.

How he wishes he was strong enough to tell her that though she was right about the deep bass of his subharmonics, that they meant so much more than just the love she thought. He wishes he had the courage to tell her that whatever may come, she already had his heart even before he realized it himself.

His eyes shoot open with sudden realization and he pulls back to look down on her sleeping form; he knows a way to show her everything he feels. Though it may cause an unimaginable amount of fear to wrap itself around his chest if she may not share his feelings, he owes it to this woman to tell her everything and let whatever consequences come from her response.


	47. Chapter 47

~Jane~

It's early in the morning hours and Jane is on the very edge of wakefulness in hopes to be able to see Garrus off to work in the mornings like she usually does. Some days she wakes and shares the morning with him while others she just mumbles a sleepy good morning, but he seems to enjoy it either way.

She cuddles up against his warm chest in the dark room and hears his responding thrum, his hand coming up to stroke her disheveled hair. "Did I wake you?" He grunts in the negative and she smiles at the groggy tone. "Do you have to leave to work today? Can't you just take the day off?" She pouts despite the fact that he probably can't even see her.

He chuckles and pulls her head up to press his lip plates to her forehead, a unique kiss that she's come to associate with him. "I forgot to tell you that I have off this week."

She scoffs in shock and shifts to look down to the dark shape of his face. "'Forgot to tell me?' How long have you been planning to leave me hanging?"

She feels him tug gently on her chin and lets him pull her down to his forehead. "Since I came home to find you eating anything remotely sweet in the house." She can hear the playful rumble in his vocals and she scowls at his ability to be so jovial so early.

"You jerk," she lightly swats his plated chest. "You could've told me then instead of making me think you have work for a week. I could've planned out something for us to do together."

Whenever they wanted to go out they tended to make sure they could plan ahead to give them enough opportunity to make sure no one they knew could catch them together. Sure, they would just look like good friends, but people tended to talk and it was always better not to give someone fuel for a fire that already exists in secret.

He hums softly and shifts to give a light nip to her cheek. "I'm sorry." She can tell by the tone of his vocals that he really isn't but lets him continue. "How about I make it up to you? I have a surprise."

That shuts her off from any more complaints. "I do like surprises."

"Then I think you'll love this one." His voice buzzes with happy excitement and something else but stops before she can try to pinpoint. "Now how about we take this opportunity to enjoy ourselves?"

"Oh?" She smirks teasingly. "You want to get back to sleep? Stay in bed until noon_sleeping_?"

He grunts, unimpressed. "Sleeping wasn't what I had in mind." She smiles as he pulls her down, a deep, rhythmic thrumming of lust starting in his chest.

She claims his lips before he has a chance to take control and suckles against his upper plates. He flicks his rough tongue against her lips is silent request and she opens, but stops him from taking control again by stopping its entrance to apply suction on its tip. He growls with a moan in the vocal's undertones and Jane gets a sudden idea.

She pulls away, much to his displeasure if his groan of frustration is anything to go by, and strokes his neck with a hand to placate him as she brings up her idea. "Garrus, what do you sound like without translators?"

If she could see in the dark she is sure he would have a brow plate lifted and head tilted in confusion. "I sound like myself…what kind of question is that?"

She rolls her eyes and leans down to give him a quick peck on where she thinks his nose is, hitting somewhat over it and the socket of his eye. "I mean what does a Turian sound like without a translator making the words into my own language?" She raises her wrist up and accesses her Omni-Tool. "Would you talk to me if I turn mine off?"

She sees his flustered mandible flicker through the orange glow. "What would you want me to say?"

She shrugs. "I don't care…list out regulations, sing 'Die for the Cause,' tell me about gun mods, say my hair looks like a mess…whatever you want. I won't be able to understand because I have absolutely no knowledge of your language." At his huff she shuts down her translator implant and nods to him before drowning the room in darkness once again.

There is silence throughout the room and Jane is about to scold him for not talking when his hands rise to her face, tangling in her hair, and a beautiful melody reaches her ears. She gasps at the touch of his hands and voice as he speaks to her in his own language of smoothly flowing syllables and occasional deep clicks or growls overlapping the seemingly endless flow of speech.

She is happy to hear that despite the words she can't understand, his familiar tone remains and isn't just a product of the technology between them. He pulls her down to him to speak directly into her ear and she softly moans as a rush of heat flows through her body. He chuckles darkly, she recognizes that easily enough, and figures that whatever he said was probably far from any type of dirty talk, but, what the hell, his voice alone is better than any words.

His hold loosens enough to let her turn to kiss his warm plates, suckling on his lip in open invitation that he gladly accepts by gliding his tongue between her lips. He wraps around her own tongue, the unique taste of his saliva mixing with her own, and she seals her lips around his long appendage, creating suction to draw out another of his deep moans.

She pulls away from his mouth, wanting to take advantage of her lack of translator, and moves to his neck. "Keep talking, baby," she growls into his skin before she starts to kiss and lick his hide.

He responds with a deep, rumbling statement lined with guttural clicks and moves his own hands down her body. She's glad they went to bed naked last night as she feels his warm palms against her breasts, the slightly rough texture of his palms sending shocks of pleasure through her nipples.

She nips his flesh, hearing a growl and echoing roll of his tongue, and pulls the bit of flesh between her lips in a soft suction, which gains her a low purring. Her hands drift from his chest, one to take the other side of his neck and caress as her mouth works and the other down, leaving a linger scratch of her nails against his waist before traveling lower.

When her hand comes into contact with the warmth center of his legs, plates already starting to shift apart, his voice becomes noticeably harsher and his words seem to gain a sharp edge in her ears. She pulls her head from his neck with a smile and he pinches her nipples with each hand, pulling a gasp from her lips and a jerk of her hips, to which he chuckles.

Her smile quickly shifts to a smirk and she shifts her hand between his legs, scratching the nail of her middle finger on the soft flesh in the part of his plates. He bucks with an intake of a breath and clicking growl and she gives him a chuckle of her own.

Garrus growls darkly and leans up, pulling her closer to him with his hands now on her back. He claims her mouth and kisses her deep, his movements fierce, shifting to lay them so she lays on her back. He drops to her chest with a deep, rolling statement and laps his wet tongue against her right breast, from bottom curve, directly over her nipple, and up to stop at her clavicle. Jane arches her back and has a sudden idea come her head that they haven't tried yet.

"Garrus," she pants, knowing that he can still understand her perfectly with his still operational translator. She bites her lip when she sees his dark outline shift, the shadow of his head rising to look up at her, trying to gain the courage to follow with her initial idea. "I want you to be on top of me this time."

Though she still doesn't know the words that come from his lips, she can tell from the tone that it's a question and she knows what he's asking, he's not oblivious.

Every time they've had sex, she's either been on top or, on rare occasions when he is above her, she's kept him up and off of her body. She knows it's a deep hatred for feeling like someone is dominating her that's come from her childhood of seeing strange man after strange man take advantage of her mother and has kept control in the bedroom in all her trysts because of it, but she wants something different with him.

Thinking back to the most memorable that he was over her, after helping him with that doctor case, she hadn't tensed up like usual when below a man. She feels so much more when she's with Garrus and she wants to give him that control, and yes, that submission because she knows it's only a trust they share, a bond that's equal give-and-take.

"I'm sure, Garrus. I trust you more than anything." She raises her hand towards his dark shape and he moves to lay his cheek plate in her palm, his eyesight better than hers in the dark. He purrs softly and says something, a soft mumble that's soothing to her ears.

He then shifts over her, and drops his head in the crook of her neck, his hot breath puffing against her skin as he continues to talk to her. He tangles one hand in her hair to message her scalp as the other drops to her breast again while she shifts enough to let her own hands take a place behind his fringe and his waist.

She grips his waist and his speech falters, his tongue lapping against her sensitive skin to send bolts of lightning to her legs. She drops her hand to his widening plates and his tone harshens again, the growling undertone rising in volume. With a sharp nip against her neck from his plates, she presses palm to his groin and presses firmly, grinding against the sensitive area, gaining her a snarl and wet trail of tongue.

She can feel his moistness with her hand against his revealed flesh and lightly traces her finger tips over his sheath opening, knowing his hardening cock lies just below. "I take you being wet for me as a complement…" she dips her fingers just enough to graze his pointed tip and he growls.

His hand drops from her hair and responds darkly through a growl before dipping his own fingers into her core. She gasps as he chuckles, probably discovery she's just as wet, and he pulls his hand up to lightly circle her clit, moving to swallow her moan with his own lips.

As she lets him pull her tongue into his mouth to rub and stroke it with his own, she grinds against his sheath, feeling his moan vibrate from his chest and throat. She twists her palm against him while applying pressure and feels the slight pressure back combined with his own hips grinding into her palm.

Figuring this is the sign that he's ready to come out of his plates, Jane shifts her hand, curious to see what it feels like for him if she takes him in hand as he's emerging. He groans low against her lips as his hips jerk lightly, his slick cock sliding out into her waiting grasp, slick with fluids and ridges not yet as pronounced as usual.

He's a constant string of husky tones in her ear as she strokes him lightly, her hand gliding easy with his fluids, and he acts like he can't even think straight, forgoing giving her pleasure to moan and thrust into her loose fist. _He must be really sensitive when he first extends,_ she considers as she drops her hand from his sensitive fringe to hold his head to her shoulder.

After a few moments filled with his mindless motions, Garrus groans and pulls from her grasp, his upper back bowing in as he speaks to her in shaky breaths and sentences. His shape is a more familiar ridged underbelly that she remembers and she knows he didn't come in her hand, so she deducts that he must have gotten to a point of over stimulation.

She softly coos nonsense in his ear as his hands seems to finally find their strength, groping her breast and attacking her cunt with vigor. Her soothing tones become more lustful and she openly moans as he works a talon and finger pad around her engorged clit, humming sweet nonsense in her ear as he winds up the coil in her belly.

It's when he changes tactics, shifting his hand to grind a knuckle against her center as his callused thumb strokes her clit that she finds herself moaning wantonly and arching her back to meet him, silent pleas to work her to release not quite passing her lips. He growls deep and takes her mouth to his, shoving his tongue into her mouth as her orgasm hits, swallowing her moans and helping to ride out the pleasure as long as possible.

When Jane is finally able to breathe, she takes his hand from between her thighs and moves to be more under his body, opening her legs invitingly. He speaks, his voice little more than a growl of approval, and shifts to kneel between her flushes thighs.

He pushes her hand away when she tries to take him in hand, instead motioning to relax and let him lead with a soft, clicking murmur. He strokes softly from her knee up and takes himself in one hand, giving a single pump from tip to base before leaning in a placing his tip between her folds.

She look up to his darkened silhouette in anticipation when he starts to push into her, slowly and making sure to widen her without pain to fit. She throws her head back with a gasp as he pushes flush with her skin, seated deep in her and dropping to his forearms to lay over her.

She can tell from his hesitance silence that he's waiting for her reaction, but despite her doubts, she isn't feeling any sensation of being overpowered with his body above her. She trails open mouthed kisses along the mandible beside her face in a wordless assurance of her thoughts and he purrs, flicking the kissed mandible closer to her lips.

With no more need to question, he starts to move, pulling out and reentering slowly to get her accustomed to his girth and length. She happy to find that each time they come together, the period of becoming used to him is growing shorter as she finds it more easy to fit him, like her body expects him now.

He thrusts hard into her, pulling her from her thoughts with a sharp gasp, and licks against her skin of her neck while lowly speaking between panted breaths. With the combined sensations of his thrusts, his plates against her clit, his licking, his chest plates rubbing her nipples, and his voice she isn't surprised to feel her breath coming in more jaggedly and her belly starting to tense tighter and tighter.

Jane lifts her legs and wraps them around his waist, letting him hit deeper, and strokes behind his head, trying to fight her impending orgasm so she can fall over the edge with him. Her combined efforts make him falter in his set pace and he nips against her skin, his organ within her walls tensing with his own building climax.

She moves towards his face, silently demanding his kiss and he obliges as his strokes become fast and rough. She feels him pulse and press along her walls and can't fight it anymore, her body shuddering with her climax as she moans into his hot mouth. Her own clenching walls pull Garrus over and he's soon brought to a growling, moaning mess as he grinding into her, pumping his hot seed into her and trying to draw out each of their pleasure.

When his hips finally slow and soon stop, he purrs softly and nuzzles his forehead against her own. She smiles and returns his tender love while stroking his mandibles. "You know, Garrus, a girl could get used to waking up like this." He huffs a laugh and nuzzles his lips against her own, a version of a kiss, while telling her something in a soft rolling of his tongue.

~SquigglySquid says: Wedding is close at hand! I just wanted to get some smut in there before the big question. And I swear this smut did have some purpose. I haven't thrown out too much smut, have I?


	48. Chapter 48

~Jane~

When Jane finally awoke, she found herself in an empty, but warm, bed and a blurry look to her Omni-Tool giving her a time of 1100. _Damn, I've never slept this late before, feels a bit strange…_ she groggily thinks as she pulls herself up into a slouched sit.

She stretches her arms, inwardly musing at the fact that it feels like she's missed the entire day already, and lets out a restful yawn. _Wonder where Garrus is off to,_ she scratches her head lightly, her nose catching a smell on the air that widens her eyes in surprise.

_Is that pancakes? And bacon?!_ Jane jumps up faster than she thought possible, her foot tangling a bit in the blankets and nearly toppling her before she catches herself, kicking the blankets with frustration at holding her back.

If the door were on hinges she would be slinging it open hard enough to pull it from the hinges, but instead they open with an anticlimactic swish, Jane through them the moment she had enough space.

Garrus is in the kitchen, setting a plate of something on the table. "Oh, you're awake, I was just about to-"

She cuts him off by throwing her arms around his neck and trailing quick, sloppy kisses anywhere she can reach. He tenses at first but quickly recovers, his arms going around her torso to steady her with a soft chuckle. "Good morning beautiful. I'm happy to see you finally decided to join the land of the living."

She draws back with a mock scowl but can't help smiling. A quick glance to the table shows that he did, indeed, get her a big stack of pancakes and pile of crispy bacon. "I should scold you for being such a smart ass, but you got bacon and pancakes so I'll let it slide." He purrs, leaning down and she gladly meets him halfway, caressing his forehead with hers. "Thank you, Garrus."

His mandible flicks in a dismissive gesture but relaxes into a smile. He pulls away, but stops when his eyes make a subtle shift downward and laughs, which makes her raise a brow in question. "You going to get dressed or do you want me to serve you in the nude?"

Jane's eyes widen and she quickly looks at herself and gasps. She was so excited about the thought of pancakes and bacon that she didn't even grab clothes and stands in the middle of the room butt ass naked.

She quickly throws her hands to her breasts with a squeak, which she will never admit to or so help her. She doesn't really know what she's trying to hide because he's seen everything before and blames it on the sudden realization and not her attempt at feigning modesty.

He laughs at her and motions to the table. "Go ahead and sit, I'll go get you something to wear." He starts to leave her to go to the bedroom but stops and calls over his shoulder, "Though I wouldn't complain."

She grumbles softly, but loud enough to get a laugh from him, and moves her attention to her –very late- breakfast. First she takes a sip of the hot coffee, her suspicion from its color and smell proven true when she finds that it's just the way she likes, chocolaty and smooth to hide the actual bitterness of the brewed beans. She raises a brow at his skill at matching it exactly to what she likes, but figures he's probably seen her do it enough to catch on.

She hears his footsteps approach, the single thump of toes because of the build of his legs, and looks over as he hands over a large shirt that she typically wears to bed. She gives a silent thanks and slips it on as he moves to grab a cup of something and join her at the table.

"You aren't eating?" She glances over as she pulls her plate towards her for closer inspection.

"I already ate." She looks to him and he shrugs. "I got hungry and you weren't showing any signs of getting up. You looked so peaceful that I left you to sleep." His mandible flicks to a smile. "You deserve it after waking up with me most mornings." He silently toasts to her with his steaming cup in silent acknowledgement and thank you.

She smiles in response and looks down to her plate. Staked up and taking up almost the entire surface are chocolate chip pancakes and she snorts a soft laugh at the memory of the first time he got her these.

She never had a taste for them before, but ever since the first time she has found herself finding an opportunity to get chocolate in her pancakes. She even remembers the look she got when she had ordered them made at mess as a celebration for her ICT completion. It's safe to say that they've become her favorite flavor, if only because of the person she automatically thinks of with each bite.

Without further hesitation, she grabs a slice of bacon and hungrily devours it, its greasy saltiness hitting her tongue with a shark crunch. "Mmmm," she mumbles through her bite, "Have I ever told you that I love you?"

He chuckles. "Because I got you breakfast? No, I don't think so, but I love you too." He takes a sip of his warm drink. "Now eat up, I still have that surprise for you."

She looks to him mid chew of a forkful of pancake and syrup, quickly swallowing so she can talk. "This isn't it?" Her only response is a knowing smile and she can't stop the smile of excitement at his playful mood.

V.v.V.v.V

The best description of his attitude would be secretively distant as he quickly hurries her to the shower after she completes her meal, not falling for her attempt to get him to join her. She doesn't push, sensing the small internal tension he's working hard at hiding, but as she gets dressed that tension builds a bit more.

"Garrus, are you okay?" She softly asks as she ties her boot laces.

He must not have expected her question because he looks to her with confusion before quickly dropping down to her level and taking her cheek in his palm with a soft thrum. "I'm sorry…I'm okay, just…excited about your surprise. Everything's fine."

She presses her head into his palm, not wanting to push him in case it is as he says and ruin his plans. He releases her as she moves back to tying up her other boot. "Be sure to bring a jacket, though," he says softly, offering his hand once she's done.

She silently nods, both a confirmation and thanks for helping her up, and grabs a jacket from the section of closet he cleared out for her things. Pulling her jacket up over her shoulders and zipping it loosely, she follows him out of the apartment.

When they exit the apartment complex and start to make their way to the transit hub, Jane finally can't take it anymore and tries to get some information on his supposed 'surprise.' "So, what'd you have in mind for today?"

Garrus pulls up a command on the terminal and glances over. "You seem to be becoming an expert at everything the Citadel has to offer, the shops, the entertainment, the restaurants, so I wanted to come up with something…different to do."

She snorts. "I'm sure there are plenty of things I haven't done and even more that_we_ haven't done." He raises a brow plate. "I think there's a showing of Hanar poetry reading, or- oh, an Elcor ballet!"

He jerks his head and huffs out a quick, dismissive laugh as a cab lands. "Thanks, but no thanks. You can go to those on your own, I'd rather not have nightmares of Elcor dancing and galloping across a stage to classical music."

She shrugs with a smile and a 'suit yourself' before she follows him into the cab. He opens the door of her side and closes it behind her once she gets situated. She smiles to herself at his chivalry as he moves to his own side and climbs in.

The shuttle lifts and he inputs the proper command to give him total control of the shuttle's direction, which piques her interest. "So..." She raises a bit in her seat to look out the window, trying to telling from the passing scenery what he may be up to. "Where we going?"

He hums but doesn't look over. "Somewhere we're not supposed to."

Her mouth pulls into a mischievous smile. "Not supposed to go, huh? You sure know how to get a girl's attention…" She smirks but knows he probably doesn't see it with his eyes ahead. "Color me intrigued."

"I believe you humans have a thing called a 'bucket list?' A list of things you want to do or accomplish before you die?" He quickly glances over and she nods, directly him to continue. "Have you ever had a chance to cross something off yours?"

She relaxes in her seat and lays her hands in her lap loosely with a sly smile. "Let's see…I've convinced a Turian to let me draw them without any clothes on and fully unplated – and I've gotten that same Turian to sleep with me."

He looks to her with a stern expression that she knows lack any real conviction due to lack of growling subvocals. "You do know Turians can't blush, right?"

She shrugs dismissively. "Can't blame a girl for trying." He huffs and flicks a mandible. "So what's on your bucket list?" She knows he's going somewhere with this but can't quite see where.

"As a kid my mom would often bring my sister and I here to visit my dad, showing me the sights, taking me to see all over the Citadel, and by the time I got into C-Sec, I was already used to seeing everything, but there still remains one thing…" His hands lightly tap a command into the console. "Even now, in C-Sec, I look up to the top of the Presidium and I say to myself: 'I want to go up there.'"

"I'm sensing a 'but' in there," Jane offers.

He quickly looks over with a smirk. "_But_ there are currently one hundred and thirty-seven regulations saying I can't, all of which my father made extra sure I knew about because I think he had suspicions of my thoughts from when I was still growing into my plates." He pauses and the cab shifts upward. "Now, though, I don't really give a damn."

Her quick laugh is unexpected but he flicks a mandible in a warm smile, the shuttle around them flattening back out. It lands with a solid thump and the doors open, both of them stepping out as he continues. "I figured that if I'm going to do something stupid, I might as well let you get to experience it too. You doesn't like the risk of getting caught?"

Jane steps out of the shuttle just as Garrus makes it to her side and she looks out at the view. Stretching below and off into the horizon in a curved arch is the entire Presidium grounds, brightly lit and shining in a sliver gleam. The lake is like a solid band of dark blue surrounded by the vivid green of gardens, rising with the curve of the Citadel to give the illusion of it rising before them.

Though the sky above is an artificial representation of a nice day and it almost gives Jane the idea of sitting under a real sky on a sunny day with its white puffs of clouds and bright blue background. She doesn't even register the passing skycars as anything more than a string of white noise, an ambiance of bustling people around their tiny little space of calm.

She takes Garrus' hand and he grips her back firmly with a soft purr. "It's incredible." She's too stunned to say more and figures he doesn't mind if his light nod in her peripheral is anything to go by.

He squeezes her hand to draw her attention and she looks to him, her eyes connecting with his clear blue. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it would inspire a certain…mood."

She smirks as he turns to her and she follow suit. "Oh? Mood? And what kind of mood is that?"

He hums, obviously liking her coy attitude. He moves closer, his vocals changing from teasingly flirting to a more serious rumble of care and love. He takes her other hand and she can feel the subharmonic through their connection flowing to her belly, she's really grown to like that feeling. "You're the best friend I've ever had, Jane…and even more, you're the first person I've ever found myself trusting in completely, with both intimate matters and not. I don't know how to use words to properly tell you everything I feel but I'm definitely willing to show you." He brings their clasped hands higher, almost level with her chest, and softly strokes his thumb along her skin. "Are you ready to be a one-Turian kind of woman?"

Jane searches his eyes, a bit confused at his sudden change in demeanor and not really understanding what he's trying to get at. They talked about personal matters and feelings before, but he's never been this anxious that she can practically feel the tension radiating off his plates. She also thinks she's made it pretty obvious what she thinks of him, but she'll gladly say it as many times as he needs.

"Hell Garrus," she says with a warm smile. "I never thought I'd meet someone I've felt so close to. That I would have found an unbelievable connection with someone that feels like it's from make-believe." She tightens her grip, hoping that her inability to properly put words to feelings – something they share, apparently - hasn't kept him from seeing the truth.

She pulls their hands to her lips and places a soft kiss on the smooth plate of his ungloved hand. "There's nothing I'd like more than to be a 'one-Turian kind of woman' if you're going to be my one-human kind of man." Her smiles broadens as his soft thrum and light nuzzle, their eyes still locked. "I love you, Garrus Vakarian."

"Well, then." His voice is strange thick with some harmonic she doesn't recognize but it sounds and feels warm as it vibrated against her body. "I guess I need to do this right." With that vague statement he pulls away, not enough to break the intimate air between them but enough to drop her hands as he drops down to one knee before her.

Jane's eye widen and her mouth drops at the sudden rush of he isn't's and you're shitting me's that start to run through her head like a stampede. He reaches into one of the pockets of his navy and steel blue casuals and pulls out a very small, but very recognizable, box.

"Jane Shepard, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife and bondmate?" He speaks to her in that same thick harmonic laced voice, his eyes never leaving her shocked ones, as he opens the lid to the tiny black box. Jane's eyes immediately fall on the item nestled in the safety of black cloth and she can't stop the shocked gasp that escapes her lips.

An asymmetrically oblong stone, at least a centimeter long and half a centimeter at its widest point, that's color changes from a deep cobalt at the edges that quickly fades into a lovely icy, almost white, hue in the center. A silver band wraps around the top and bottom, looping back to form the ring for a finger.

Her voice abandons her and she stands there, dumbstruck and mouth working like a suffocating fish, but the look in Garrus' eyes quickly snap her to reality. She will not stand for the uneasy expression in his eyes and the tension in his shoulder that looks like he's waiting for rejection, so with stern determination she kicks herself internally and forces her weak voice to speak.

"Yes, Garrus. A million times yes." She can't even recognize the pitchy voice as her own, but the sudden relief in his eyes is worth it. "You stupid, crazy bastard." She drops to pull him up. "Of course yes."

He hums, at loss for words and happily accepts her fierce kiss, his mandibles flicking against her cheeks. He grunts in surprise when her tongue darts out, seeking his own, but he quickly recovers and lets her show him her complete agreement and giddy excitement without complication things with words.

After a moment of tangling tongues he pulls away and clears his throat anxiously. "Right… uh, I need to put this on you, right?" He looks up to her eyes and she can see the silent plea for direction and his desire to do this right. She holds out her left hand, her ring figure lifted higher than the rest, and silently nods with a wide smile.

She recognizes the flick of grateful mandible as he takes the ring out of the box and takes her hand in his. "The jeweler said this is the most common size… If it doesn't fit we can always get it resized so it's more comfortable…"

She smiles and lets him ramble, thinking he's adorable when he's nervous. When his hand moves and slides the ring up her finger he purrs at the fact that it slides up perfectly and without catching on her knuckles.

He looks up to her in a silent go-ahead and she pulls her hand up. Seeing the smooth, blue stone against her skin. The thought that this little piece of jewelry came from the one person in the entire galaxy that she cares for more than anything, herself included, makes her heart jump and her belly jittery.

Her face is going to be sore tomorrow with how much she's smiling, but she couldn't give a damn as she drops her hand to rush into Garrus' arms. He easily wraps around her torso as her arms go over his shoulders and around his neck, his content and happy rumbling echoing in her thoughts through their pressed chests.

"It's a stone that's found on Palaven." He softly speaks as he nuzzles into her hair affectionately. "It's a special stone that bondmates use to show their love. It'll change into a darker blue when it's under a natural sun."

They pull apart. "So you're telling me that in space I'll have the color of your eyes but when I go planetside I'll see the color of your colony markings?" He jerks his head at that, pausing a second to consider but soon mirroring her smile.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." He tilts his head. "I never thought of it like that."

She smirks at him and tilts her head playfully. "Then I guess it's good you have me around to point out things your _observation skills_ miss."

He laughs and she joins him cheerfully. "Come on," he takes her hand and starts to lead her back to the cab. "Someone has bound to have seen us and let C-Sec know…I'd rather not spend my first moments engaged being lectured about not following the rules."

She chuckles, silently mirroring his reluctance to have to explain this to complete strangers, and gets into the shuttle quickly once he opens the hatch. Once he's in and his door is sealed they are off and heading home, more than ready to celebrate the new phase of their relationship.

~SquigglySquid says: I know some of the dialogue is either word-for-word or basically the same as what was in ME3, but I enjoyed that scene and it seemed to be something nice to use for when he pops the question. Hopefully it wasn't like reading a script directly from the game.


	49. Chapter 49

~Garrus~

"You know we still have to keep our relationship a secret, don't you?"

Garrus is pulled from his mindless stroking through Jane's red locks at her question and he takes a bit to replay her statement before properly answering. "I'm fine with people not knowing." He shrugs softly so he doesn't disturb the woman resting along his chest on the couch. "I know and you know, so that's all that really matters to me."

"No one would really approve anyways," she quietly says, a sad tone to her voice. "Is this unfair to do to each other?" She shifts a bit to look up to his eyes. "Is it fair to make each other constantly keep this a secret for fear of what our people would think?"

The look of pained fear in her eyes makes his chest hurt in sympathy and he strokes a thumb along her cheek. "Do you not want this?" He dreads the answer should it turn out that her earlier confession this afternoon was only a sudden answer that she no longer agrees with after thinking about it.

"No, no, no," she says quickly, a look of panic in her eyes, as she sits up and turns in his arms. She takes his face in her hands and looks deeply into his eyes with her emerald orbs. "I want this with you and fuck anyone else… but I want to make sure I'm not being unfair to you to make you settle with me. I mean, I'm not a Turian, Garrus. You can't tell your family about me, you can't let your work know about me…" She drops her head in defeat and her next words are almost inaudible. "I can't give you children."

His chest rumbles in pain at her words. "I didn't think you thought about something like that." He lifts her head by her chin to see her wet eyes and downturned eyebrows.

"I only ever considered it once everything set in." She smiles weakly and his chest tightens at the obviousness of its lie. "Now that I have had a chance to let this," she holds her left hand, ring fingered now adorned with his bonding gift, up and between their faces, "sink in, I know all the things that we will have to do and will miss out on because we are so different."

A soft keen echoes in his chest as he mirrors her hold and softly holds her gaze. "Jane, I don't care how secretive we have to be in public. I love you." His mandible quivers and he hums sadly. "I'm sorry that I will never be able to give you a family."

A tortured laugh escapes her lips and he inwardly cringes at the sound. "You can give some woman a family, Garrus. I can't give anyone a family, I can't conceive."

"What do you mean?" His voice is weak in confusion.

"Come on, Garrus. My mother did drugs when I was in the womb." She shrugs in self-dismissal. "I was born without the ability to have babies." She laughs that pained laugh again. "Figures I'd have periods without any of the benefits."

Garrus pulls her towards him, a purr of comfort and love emanating from his chest, and presses his forehead to hers. "I love you still, Jane. I know what I want and it's you." He rubs against her, his plates against her soft skin. "Whatever your heart decides I will always be here for you in any way I can, however you will have me."

"My heart wants you, Garrus." Her soft hands caress each mandible. "My heart has wanted you since I met you but I just never understood. I've never loved anything or anyone more than I love you."

Together, Garrus gently coaxes her closer as Jane moves to climb close, her legs straddling him to curl around his back. Garrus pulls her to him, his warm lip plates pressing softly against her lips, nipping softly in his own version of a pucker.

Jane opens her mouth and they both seem to have the same idea as Garrus' tongue comes in contact with her tongue as it darts past her lips. He softly purrs, promising devotion in words she doesn't know, as he caresses her tongue and willing lets her either push into his mouth or coax him back into hers.

After a moment of wordlessly pouring their hearts out to each other, Jane pulls away and lays slow kisses up his right mandible before returning to look at him, a genuine curve of happiness on her lips. She sighs and leans in to tight hug him, pressing at close as their bodies will allow as her arms wrap firmly around his neck.

He holds her just as firmly, one hand at her back and the other holding her head to the crook of his neck to feel her breath against his sensitive hide, and he realizes that she must have understood his harmonics without knowing the exact translation.

"I wish we could find somewhere to legally marry us without a fuss." She whispers into his neck and he hums in agreement. "I wish the Citadel was Las Vegas." He grunts in confusion and she pulls back with a soft smile on her lips. "Las Vegas has chapels where you can just go in and get legally married on a moment's notice. No need for fancy theatrics, just a witness, bride and groom, and official, but that's already covered." She huffs and her shoulders droop. "I just wish the Citadel had something like that, but I don't even know if that would work. I don't even know how Turians go about getting a marriage license or if it's private."

He chuckles and tilts his head. _Clearly she doesn't know the Heirarchy._ "Licenses are pretty much the same thing as you, we find an official and have it filled out. As for privacy, the Hierarchy doesn't delve into that sort of thing. What someone does when off duty isn't of any importance so long as it doesn't interfere with your work." He pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Besides, I'm not a high enough tier for anyone to really care who I bond with, even if it's none of their business. What about the Alliance? Would they look at your records?"

She shakes her head, tossing her hair back out in front of her eyes and he chuckles as she places it back. "Humans have privacy laws. If I don't get married under an Alliance official then no one knows."

He hums in satisfaction at the thought and starts to quickly think of if the Citadel does have a place like she described. He suddenly remembers a place he was once called out to for a drunk and disorderly call. Despite that one incidence, which didn't really involve the place but the bar down the way, the place was in a quiet part of the Wards and so he cups Jane's cheek, grabbing her attention to tell her of his idea.

"Jane," he softly says, his subvocals warmly thrumming. "The Citadel does have a place like what you described."

"Really?!" She gasps and raises one hand to her mouth, a cute picture that makes her look much younger, and he smiles.

"Do you want to go?" He's pretty sure he knows the answer just because of her reaction but there's no harm in actually making her say it, a guilty pleasure he admits but he can't be blamed for finding joy in hearing her say it.

"Of course, what makes you think I'd say no?" She gives him a quick kiss right in the center of his brow plates. "What do we need to do? Do you know?"

He shifts to pull up his Omni-Tool, calling up the information on the establishment he remembers. He quickly glances over the extranet page for the business, a place called Castle of Love – ridiculous name – and takes note of the requirements for a wedding ceremony.

Quickly closing the interface once he has all he needs to know he looks up to Jane's hopefully eyes, wide in excitement, and purrs happily. "All we need that we don't already have is a witness, but I know just the person." _Plus he owes me a favor_.

"And clothes. We are not getting married in jeans and casuals." She plucks at Garrus' shirt with a chuckle.

"If you insist." He huffs in mock insult, but drops the act with a chuckle at her smack of lips and light swat. "Let me send off a ping to see if our witness is available and then we can both go out and find something." She nods and waits as he send off a quick message, smiling internally at his friend's possible reaction.

"Is this witness someone I would know?" Her eyes are innocently curious when he looks up, waiting for a response.

"Not personally, but yeah." He relaxes back in the couch. "Remember Detective Chellick?"

Her brows shoot up. "Won't he tell your dad?"

He chuckles. "Not if he wants to keep his own secrets secret." He doesn't really elaborate, wouldn't want to go back on his word if he expects the detective to help him. "Plus I helped take a few of his cases so he could take time off, so he owes me the little bit of his time that it'll take for us to get married."

She gives him a knowing smirk but he only responds with a flick of a mandible as his Tool chimes in an incoming message. He pulls it up as Jane opens up her own Omni-Tool to look at something.

"What kind of favor are you asking?" He reads Chellick's response, knowing the older Turian is most likely buzzing with suspicion.

"Just need you to be a witness for my wedding." He smirks, knowing full well the reaction he'll get.

"What?!" He laughs at the expected answer. Before he can properly explain he gets another message. "Aren't weddings a human thing?"

He chuckles, knowing full well that Chellick is already putting the pieces together, he's not a good detective because of dumb luck. "I already told you about her, remember?"

"I guess I should say it's about time… So I'm also assuming you'd want help legally filing this too?"

Garrus inwardly cringes at that little bit of information he missed. He completely forgot that technically their license would go through a branch of C-Sec as it gets sent to their respective governments and the last thing he wants is someone who knows his father to see it and spread the word.

He scolds himself for not thinking about how many connections his dad has from his long career, but he hopes that Chellick's offer must mean that he has a way around the little obstacle.

"Are you able to do that? Don't offer if you can't."

"I may not have as many connections as your father, but I do have someone who can properly transfer your files without him catching wind of it."

Garrus sighs in relief and silently thanks Jane for forcing him into initially playing nice with the older detective. With a quick glance to assure that she's still immersed in her Tool, he sends out his reply. "If you could play as witness and do that, we would be more than even. I'd owe you but I'm completely fine with it."

"Don't mention it, Garrus. Send me the location and time and I'll see you there… and congratulations."

Garrus closes his interface with a smile and looks up to Jane scrolling through her Tool, her brow furrowed in concentration. He touches her forearm softly and she snaps up to him, a split second of confusion from being pulled from her concentration before a smile pulls at her lips. "Got our witness taken care of?" she jokes.

He chuckles and nods as she closes her Omni-Tool, freely giving her his hand when she reaches out and locks his fingers with hers in the way that has become more familiar to him than he would ever imagine. "Chellick will be there. Now for you to find something to wear." He smirks at her scowl, not intimidated in the least to stop his goading. "How long are you going to need?"

"It's not just me, you jerk." She drops her scowl to a light lipped smile when he rumbles good-naturedly. "I think two hours is good. I mean how long would we need to find something, put it on, get fancied up, and arrive at the chapel?"

She snorts at his confused shrug and leans down to give him a quick kiss and rub her forehead with his. "I guess we should probably go do that then." He hums in agreement, but remains pressed against her head.

"You need to stop holding me back, Garrus. I have a dress to go look for." Her words are a stark contrast to her insistent pressure against his plates and as much as he would love to stay here, wrapped up in her, he also wants to legally become this beautiful woman's husband and bondmate.

"Come on, Jane." He lightly pushes her up and she reluctantly moves off of him. "I would like nothing more than to stay here with you, but I'd much rather do it with you as my wife and mate."

She smiles and nods in agreement before moving to her shoes. He does the same and before long they are both ready to head out in their own separate directions in search for something to wear when they are legally joined and officially start their life together.

~SquigglySquid says: Yes, I know this is a lot of chapters for this one event but I figured since it is the whole premise of the story that it deserves the extra time. Plus, the wedding will mark the end of part one and beginning of ME1.


	50. Chapter 50

~Jane~

_'__I heard that human brides wear white on their wedding day…' he had said without elaborating. What the hell is that supposed to mean?! Do I get a white dress or what?_Jane battles with her racing thoughts as she blindly makes her way to a dress shop. _Do people even still _do _that?_

She feels like this idea of getting married was a big mistake, not because she doesn't want to marry Garrus but because it feels like all the work going into it is driving her insane. She also now knows why she hasn't messed with fashion and dressing up in years.

Shaking her head clear with a heavy exhale, Jane enters a store that boasts dresses of all shapes, sizes, colors, and styles in its window. Her eyes widen at the shear amount of clothing on racks lining the walls and quickly admits that she's completely out of her element.

Like a godsend, an Asari and young human woman approach from the back of the store. "Can I help you ma'am?" The Asari asks politely and by the lower register of her voice, Jane can safely guess that the woman must already be in her Matriarchal years.

"Yes, actually." Jane puts on her best confident and friendly smile. "I'm looking for a dress but have absolutely no clue what to get." She motions to the store and the multitude of colors of fabrics on the racks with a pleading look.

The older woman chuckles and nods, motioning Jane to follow. "I understand and will be more than happy to help. My name is Linia and my assistant's name is Vanessa. Now tell me, what kind of dress are you looking for?"

Jane stops in her tracks and the older woman turns, chuckling softly once she sees Jane's completed befuddled expression. "Um, I'm getting married – but it's not a huge wedding, just my fiancé and I – and I think he wants me to get a white dress."

The woman's eyes drift off, focusing on her thoughts, and she takes a moment to think before her light indigo head nods at an internal decision. "Yes, okay Miss…"

"Jane, call me Jane."

The woman nods and continues, "Miss Jane, do you have any preferences? Anything particular that you are looking for?"

"Well, not really." Jane bites her lip and runs through what she may have once seen and liked, but her mind completely abandons her. "All I know is that I'd rather not show my legs or arms – or back." Her last two words come out softly and barely audible.

Both of the other women frown. "And why would you not want to show those things?"

Jane shrugs. "I'm a soldier so I have really defined legs and arms. I don't really want to gross out my fiancé with me trying to look nice in a dress with that showing."

The young girl gasps in disbelief and the Asari woman smiles warmly. "Jane, I'm sure you're absolutely stunning. It's common for many women to feel self-conscious of their image but how about you let us find you something to try? If you don't like it then we can go with something else."

Jane sighs, defeated but willing to accept the woman's opinion. _They do work in a dress store, after all, so they should know something about what they're talking about._

"One more question, if you don't mind. Is there any reason you also do not wish to have your back shown?" Jane had almost thought the woman hadn't heard her, but perhaps she underestimated the older woman's hearing.

"I have scars on my back that'd I'd rather not have invading my wedding if it's at all possible." Jane shrugs dismissively. "It kind of ruins the happy moment."

With a light nod and wave to follow, Jane is lead to the back of the store where a small platform sits in front of a set of mirrors on three sides and a door that she's told leads to the changing room. The two women then tell Jane to stay in this area and relax as they collect some dresses to start.

Over a very frustrating hour – and rejected dresses – later, the two women pull away from Jane with wide smiles on their faces. The silently motion Jane to the platform, practically bouncing in excited anticipation. Jane doesn't know what makes them think this dress will be 'the one' that they've been searching for, but climbs up the steps anyways and what greats her definitely succeeds in dropping her jaw.

Standing in the mirror is a woman in a beautiful, floor length white dress with little sleeves over the balls of her shoulders and a deep v-neckline. Jane turns to see her back and gasps at the lacey material that covers across her back, starting just below her neck and down to right above her waist.

The two women join Jane and she vaguely hears the Asari begin to describe her dress. "This is known as a Grecian or Goddess Wedding Dress with a beautiful empire waistline that flows down into the chiffon skirt." She softly touches the fabric at Jane's shoulders. "You said that you didn't like the sleeveless and spaghetti strap styles so this dress has cap sleeves, enough to put to at ease but still enough to show your beautiful and elegant arms." She motions Jane to turn and lays her hand against the lace backing. "I think that this helps to cover your scars and helping you be more at ease with very goddess-like details. What do you think?"

Jane turns completely, smiling at the feeling of the rush of air from the fabric swishing around her legs. "I love it. This is the first dress in a long time that I've actually felt pretty in."

"You're very pretty in any dress." The small voice of Vanessa rounds from her back right. Jane looks over her shoulder and the girl smiles.

A gentle hand lands on her shoulder, drawing her attention the Asari Matriarch. "Vanessa is right. Though they weren't the perfect dress for this special day, you were very beautiful in all of them."

Jane silently nods in thanks and Linia accepts with a smile and forward nod. "So," Jane flips some of the sheer fabric around her legs with a hand, "let's see the damage this dress will do to my wallet. I still have my hair and makeup to get to." Linia chuckles and leads Jane back down the platform.

Once she has her dress and some sandaled heels in hand, Jane decides to head over the Ward with the chapel, already knowing where it is by Garrus' ping earlier, and see if she can work out her hair and makeup situation there.

When she arrives at the Ward, she is lucky enough to find a place that promises both speed and the chance to get both of her needs taken care of so she doesn't hesitate to test out that promise. She really hopes she doesn't show up late to her own wedding because she was too picky to pick out a dress in time.

With barely a moment to spare, Jane rushes to the chapel, her hair loosely pinned off her temples and left to curl down her back because she figures that she might as well use this day as an excuse to finally 'let her hair down' and a subdued style of makeup consisting of a pearlescent shadow and coral lip stain.

She will definitely have to recommend that place to someone in a hurry if they always work at the rate they did her. Should she ever find herself knowing someone who would need that kind of thing, they will definitely be getting that business. They even let her change in their offices though they could very well have done it out of pity for a stressed out bride. Either way, Jane's thankful as she sees the chapel in the distance.

At the sight of two Turian figures outside the building, seeming to be in conversation, her heart starts to pound and she inwardly hopes she doesn't start to sweat and ruin her makeup, hair, and dress.

She gets close enough to see that Garrus has his back turned almost completely to her, but when his cream plated company with white colony marking along his mandible and chin motions behind he turns and his eyes widen at the same time hers do at the sight of each other.

His suit is a deep ebony with silvery white accents along his shoulders and down his chest. The clothing it made of different textures of fabrics, from smooth silk like accents to textured ribbing along the sides of his waist. He even removed the visor that always seems plated to his head and his colony markings shine in the lights like they've been touched up.

"Jane," he purrs as he takes her hands into his. "You look gorgeous. And you're wearing a dress." He drops his head to hers. "You should wear them more often, you look amazing."

"You took the words out of my mouth." He pulls by with a lighthearted chuckle. "Wow doesn't even describe how good you look." She smirks. "Who would have known you clean up so well?"

He laughs, taking her hand and turning to his companion. "Jane, this is Decian. Decian, this is my soon-to-be wife, Jane."

Jane nods in greeting but Chellick offers his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Jane." She takes his hand, curious because normally Turians don't take kindly to touch. "I figured that if you're willing to greet me as a Turian, I might as well greet you as a human." He solves her internal conflict before she can ask. "Congratulations to both of you. This fledgling couldn't seem to shut up about you, I was starting to question if he was really speaking truth but I see now that there's no doubt."

"Um, thank you?" Jane is sure she does not want to know what Garrus has been saying to his friend and would rather not give them the opportunity to let her in on their 'guy talks.' The two laugh at her reaction and she definitely agrees that yes, she _does not_ want to know.

"Come on you two. I'd rather we not spend more of the evening out here making small talk." Decian motions them in. "I have no idea why you decided to do this so late in the night. Unlike you, I have work."

Garrus chuckles and tightens his grip on her hand. "You wouldn't be doing anything besides working after hours and you know it." Chellick only grunts in response as they approach the front desk.

"Why, hello!" A Salarian happily greets. "Welcome, welcome to the Castle of Love, where all can be King and Queen for their wedding!" He looks among the group of visitors. "Now, how are the lucky bride and groom?"

Garrus and Jane both step forward, their faces bright in a joyous smile and the clerk clasps his hands together with a happy gasp. "Why, we've never been treated to helping a human and Turian couple! How wonderful! Come, come… I'll get your papers so we can begin."

The clerk ducks down and pulls out a real paper copy of documents and a datapad. "Now, we like to have two forms of documentation, just to be safe." He smiles and hands each an ink pen. "Please fill here where we've highlighted and I believe you must be the witness? Here I need you…" Jane lets him direct Decian as she and Garrus fill out their forms.

When they are both finished with electronic and actual forms, the clerk takes a quick look before giving a quick nod. "Right, now…Would you like to participate in the human tradition of exchanging rings?" They both look to each other with frowns, they hadn't even thought about that. "We have rings here, no need to fret! Here, here," he leads them to another section of the desk and clicks something under the surface that washes a secret chamber with light. "We have plenty of sizes. I'm sure we can even find one to fit the groom."

He gives them a quiet moment as Jane scans over the rings, she sees a set of two silver bands with a groove that runs down the center and points, turning to Garrus in silent question. He shrugs and nods, clearly out of his element with the strange custom.

"How about those? Are they large sizes?" The thicker, most likely male one seems quite large, but she's never really had the need to actually size Garrus' fingers to get an idea. _And that brings up another question: where is he going to wear it?_

The Salarian nods and says something in agreement while pulling the two rings out, but Jane is distracted by taking Garrus' left hand. She frowns at it, trying to determine with finger will fit better for his ring. The larger forefinger or the smaller pinky-esque finger? Which is more comfortable if a ring was put on it?

Garrus must feel her inner turmoil because he drops his free hand over hers and softly purrs, quickly snapping her out of her stupor of needless worry. She smiles at him and turns to the rings, taking the one meant for her and testing its size.

When it proves to fit and lay nicely under her engagement ring she removes it with a nod and hands it back. She then takes the larger ring and turns to her fiancé. "Does it matter which finger?"

"The outer one is more similar to yours." He helpfully offers with a flick of a smile.

She nods at his easy decision while she had nearly had a panic attack and takes his hand, slipping the ring over his plates and down to the base of his finger. It's a bit loose but if his wider knuckles are taken into consideration, then the ring should be a perfect fit so long as he agrees. "Try that. Is it comfortable? Can you easily bend your fingers?"

He flexes his fingers while turning his hand over, testing the fit on his differently shaped anatomy. After he comes some conclusion he slips the ring off and hands it back. "It fits."

"Great!" The Salarian chirps. "Now, let's get everything paid for and then we can begin!"

"Jane, why don't you go in and decide what you want to be said. I have no clue so I'll stay back and get this taken care of." Garrus motions to the back of the room where two double doors stand.

"Oh yes, Polorth, our official, is back there. Go on ahead and speak with him about what you want to have said." The clerk waves Jane off as he pulls out a datapad and starts to point out information.

In the chapel itself, Jane finds an older Salarian, hunched from obvious age and quietly cleaning a table where some candles sit. "Excuse me," Jane politely calls. "I was told to come to you to talk about what will be said at the wedding?"

"Mmmm?" He slowly turns to her and as soon as his eyes lay on her, his face brightens up. "Oh hello Miss. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in. Please, tell me what you'd like said at your wedding."

Jane scratches at her bare arm. "Well, I'm not really picky. I'm fine with the basics."

"And your groom?" He politely questions.

"Oh, my fiancé is Turian, so if you want to work some of his culture in too would be great. We don't need anything fancy."

The old figure thinks for a moment. "You two seem sound like very to-the-point people." He chuckles. "You sound more like a stuffy Salarian couple than a blushing human bride and her knight in living armor." Jane tilts her head in confusion at his remark but he just laughs. "Please take no offense. This old slug has lived most of his life in a society that moves to fast to enjoy the little things and I'm trying to use what little chance I have left to live like an exact opposite to the typical Salarian man. I am more than happy to help you get married and I'm thankful that you and your fiancé have chosen to come to us in this special day."

Jane nods, thinking that this little man is quite the odd one, when she hears the door reopen and Garrus and Chellick enter, followed closely by the desk clerk who's holding a small pillow.

The older Salarian, Polorth she remembers the younger man called him, lightly taps her and motions to the center of the aisle between the chairs. Decian takes a seat and Garrus follows the clerk up the aisle to stand before Jane, taking her hands gently with a soft thrum and looking deep into her eyes with his crystal blues.

The young clerk stands beside the older official, whispering quickly into his ear before he turns to address the other three in the room. "Dear friends, we are here today to share in joy with Garrus and Jane as they take a memorial step in their lives. Through their time together, a love and special bond has taken hold and they have decided to follow their hearts' desires and become joined as one.

"Love knows no bounds, sees no difference in race or origins, and links those together thought to be completely different. Side by side, two people that may seem so different can become one by the acknowledgment of that which makes them the same.

"I have never had the pleasure of ordaining over such a lovely couple who are so clearly in love. They have found a love that transcends species and it will be the pleasure of this small place of love to give them that opportunity to becoming as one."

The older man stops and looks to the young couple and directly addresses them, knowing full well that to expect them to look away from each other is mad. "It is now time for the vows. Would you like to say something to one another?"

Garrus flicks a mandible in a warm smile. "Jane, I give myself to you, body and spirit, flesh and soul, for the rest of my days, living and gone. Your happiness is mine, your pain in mine, your anger and sadness all echo within my own heart and mind as I bind myself to you for eternity. Our love will never bend, never weaken, no matter what may come in our way. If you shall ever find yourself unable to continue, I will gladly carry your burden because I love you and I shall always love you until my end and beyond."

Jane smiles, tightening her hands in his, and Polorth nods with a smile. "Jane, would you like to say a few words?"

She inhales, preparing to try to lay out in words all the love she has for the man before her. "Garrus, my love, my desire, my salvation, I love you more than my words can ever come close to describing. If I had the power, I would show you all the joy and deep happiness I only feel with you in my presence, but since I do not, I will gladly spent the rest of our lives making sure to show you in every way. I will be your support and strength in difficulties no matter the cost to myself because your struggles are mine. I love you and happily be bonded to you for the rest of eternity." Garrus smiles, his bass harmonics rumbling through their clasped hands.

Polorth turns to his younger companion and motions him to approach with the pillow, their rings laying in its center. "Now Garrus, take her ring and repeat after me." Garrus drops Jane's hands to follow the direction. When he turns back, Jane helps him by holding her hand out and spreading her fingers as the official starts. "I, Garrus Vakarian, give you, Jane Shepard…"

Garrus repeats the words, his beautifully musical voice ringing in Jane's ears. She's so in love with this man and she can't even bother to care about the giddiness a simple thing like his voice brings her.

"…this ring as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you."

"…this ring as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you," Garrus rumbles with a purring tone flowing through his subvocals. He slides the ring up her finger and strokes along her inner hand before drawing away.

"Now, Jane, take his ring and repeat after me." Garrus mimics her earlier move and smiles as she takes his long fingers in hand. "I, Jane Shepard, give you, Garrus Vakarian…"

"I, Jane Shepard, give you, Garrus Vakarian…" She smiles openly at her soon-to-be husband, her heart beating so fast and hard in excitement she's afraid everyone in the room can probably hear.

"…this ring as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you."

She pushes the rings up his plated finger as she repeats, "this ring as an eternal symbol of my undying love and commitment to you." He softly quirks a mandible at her little adlib but doesn't complain, taking her other hand in his instead.

"If there is nothing else that the couple would like to add?" He looks to them and they both shake their heads softly in the negative. "Then by the power of the Citadel and all its inhabitants, I now pronounce you husband and wife, bondmates eternal. You may now kiss the bride."

With a soft purr Garrus leans down as she raises a bit on her toes, his arms moving to her back as she wraps around his neck. He first tilts his head to the side to kiss her with a human-styled marriage kiss, a slow, but gentle pressure against her lips before pulling back enough to caress her forehead with his own with a soft thrum.

She's too lost in his gaze to notice the cheerful applause around them until they pull apart and see the two Salarians and Chellick all standing and clapping with smiles. She smiles, embarrassed, and feels Garrus' soft caress against her hand in gentle comfort.

The din lowers to a stop and the older Salarian quickly clears his raspy throat. "Everyone, I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Vakarian."

She inwardly smiles at her husband's shocked tensing of the hand in hers at the declaration and softly urges him onward, deciding to give him a break and explain when they get home. He quickly recovers, clearly not in any mood to want to stay longer than possible and easily leads her out to the sounds of the room applauding again.

The doors close behind them and he turns to her, clearly about to ask when she raises a hand to stop him. "I'll explain at home." He purrs at the sound of her finally acknowledging his apartment as her own. "Right now I want to know if we need to stay."

He smirks with a soft growl. "Nothing is keeping us here besides our immobile feet. How about we go home and complete the Turian bonding?"

She matches his smirk with a wide, happy smile and lets him lead her to the nearest terminal to hail a cab. He certainly doesn't want to wait to complete their marriage so why should she?

~SquigglySquid says: It's 5:30 in the morning where I'm at (I haven't yet gone to bed) and though I really want to get the last chapter out, I can't, for the life of me, manage to stay awake. Sorry, but just know that next in a Turian bonding, the somewhat-stay-at-home honeymoon, and lead up into ME1.


	51. Chapter 51

~Jane~

The moment the apartment door closes, locking them away from the rest of the galaxy, they on each other in a flurry of wet tongues and pressed lips, plated and flesh. Their kisses are sloppy as they fight for dominance, every nerve firing from their contact yet lamenting that it isn't enough.

"Let's get these clothes off," Jane pants as Garrus drops his head, roughly nipping at her flesh and reaching to run his palms against the lace across her back.

He growls in her ear and Jane feels a loosening around her shoulders of the dress. "I like the back of this… The feel against my palms and I get to see all your spine and shoulder blades." He continues to open the snaps down the back of her dress while nudging her towards the bedroom.

She chuckles darkly, softly shifting off her sandals and holding the sagging dress to help him finish unclasping it. "I should've known you'd go for my bones… Now the weird fetishes come out."

He chuckles, more a growling purr than actual vocals, and licks a long, hot stripe up the side of her neck. "Too bad I waited until after you're stuck with me, huh?" She snorts and pulls back to kiss him, her tongue immediately entering his mouth with a soft moan.

"That's not going to scare me away," she says with husky undertones once she pulls away.

He purrs and moves his hands to her hanging sleeves, pushes her own hold away and slowly lowers the dress down. He growls as the material reveals her perk nipples and ducks his head to swipe one with his tongue, letting the dress drop to the ground to pool around her feet.

She gasps at the rough texture along her sensitive bud and rewards her with a circling of her areola before swiping across the center again. He caresses the other with his rough thumb and lifts his head to nudge her chest in a soft demand to step back.

She's surprised to find that they stand just at the threshold of their bedroom and chuckles at her lack of observation. No one can really blame her for it though, she did just get married after all.

At his silent request, Jane pushes his shoulders softly away and bends down to grab her dress from the floor, aware enough to not want to have such an expensive article of clothing by them stepping all over it. He chuckles light heartedly as she steps out the circle of cloth and walks to the bedroom to wait for her.

Quickly moving to the closet, she throws the dress into the vicinity of her corner of their wardrobe and is able to turn back to him to continue where they left off before she feels a snap at her ass.

She yelps and tries to spin, but her grinning husband grabs both of her cheeks to hold her ass towards him. "What the hell was that?" she calls over her shoulder.

"I had no idea you had clothing like this." He dips a talon under the band of her thong.

_Of course! He must have never seen a thong before._ Her thoughts shout. _Has he never seen a stripper before? Do Turian strippers even need thongs?_

Not wanting to go down that rabbit hole, Jane quickly shakes her head and addresses her husband just as he snaps her again with the band. "I thought it'd be nice to wear something _unique_ for our wedding night." She grabs his hand to stop him from snapping her again. "And if you do that one more time, I _will_ murder you."

He smirks and she sees that dark desire in his eyes just before he rips the strap, the lacey white thong dropping to the floor useless, and slaps her right ass cheek. She jumps with a squeak and he chuckles darkly, licking along her neck in satisfaction. "You're such an ass…" she breathily says under his delicious torture.

He slaps her again with a growl. "Maybe, but I'm _your_ ass."

She turns in his hold with a smile. "Damn right. Now, how do we go about removing this?" She lightly plucks at his black shirt.

His mandible flicks out in a knowing smile. "Like this…" He grips right at the point she had just touched and pulls, his talons shredding the fabric.

"Garrus!" Jane gasps, shocked at the elegant fabric now in tatters against his chest. "What happened to removing it like a normal person?"

He snorts in good mirth at her reaction. "This is taking it off like a normal person. Turian bonding outfits are made to not last as we tend to rip it off one another." His last words are laced with a purling growl. "Why waste time undressing?"

She blinks repeatedly and runs the tattered material through her fingers as he shrugs it off his shoulders. "I liked that outfit on you…"

She sees him roll his eyes with an exaggerated look to the sky. "How about I get one like it, made out of real materials that won't rip after in the first wash?" He takes her head in his hand and strokes his warm fingers through her hair.

She leans into his palm with a lustful smile, forgetting that problem with his promise, and moves her hands to the front of his pants. He drops his head and claims her mouth, shifting to, she assumes, push his fancy shoes off his feet as she fiddles against the clasp between his legs.

He tangles his tongue with hers forcefully, taking claim to every inch of her with his long organ. He pulls back and drops to her clavicle. "Jane, just rip them off." His free hand drops to his pants with hers but she shoves it away, to which he gruffly chuckles.

She tugs, hard, on the fabric and hears the sharp rip as it falls from her fingers. _I can't believe tear away clothes are a thing in Turian weddings._ She drops her hands to his pelvis as his own hands drop to caress her nipples.

His tongue drags across her collar bone to then move up her shoulder and neck, curling around her ear with a low growl. She pants and strokes along his seam, finding it already open enough for two of her fingers to caress his sheath. "Someone's ready to go."

"Jane," he pants in her ear. "I've been ready since I heard that you took my name." She shivers at his response. "How did you even manage that by the way?"

Wanting to later test her idea, she shifts her hands from his groin to take his waist and stroke behind his head. He moans roughly at her ministrations as she turns to speak into his ear. "Isn't it great how private human documents are? The only ones who will ever know me as Jane Vakarian are you," she grips his waist, "me," she presses her fingers into his plates, "and your friend, but he has his own secrets, doesn't he? No need to worry about him…" She runs her tongue along his sensitive neck and his grip tightens with a growl.

As soon as her tongue leaves his hide Garrus' mouth is at hers, his tongue sliding easily into her waiting mouth, wrapping forcefully with hers as his hot pants mix with hers. His hands move from the fronts of her breasts to the sides, pulling her closer while still be able to stroke a thumb over each nipple.

They pull apart at the last possible moment to gasp for breath. "Are you ready to bond like a Turian, Jane?" His voice is as dark as his eyes with desire.

"Oh, I'm ready." _Now is the time to spring the surprise._ She puts a growl to her voice. "I'm ready to mate like a Turian, too."

His eyes widen for a split second, before narrowing in confusion. "Are you sure? I don't want to make you feel vulnerable… I mean, I know we've been working on my being on top, but that's a little different." He cups her cheek. "You sure you'll be okay with that?"

She smiles, hoping it'll calm his unease. "I'm sure." She huffs a warm laugh. "I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I want to feel like my husband's dominating me. I know that you've never hurt me so I want to freely give myself to you." She tilts her head in silent question as he seems to contemplate and after a moment, he smiles and nods.

His next move startles another yelp out of her lips as he ducks down to pick her up, one arm below her knees and the other around her shoulders. She wraps her arm around his neck and grips him before her mind clears and loosens her instinctual hold. She hears a soft rumble of a laugh as he climbs into the bed with her in his hold and sits down with her in his arms.

"How do you want to do the bond marks?" She looks up to him as his hands softly caress her flushing skin, sending little sparks of pleasure to her already moist folds. "Can I even give you one?"

He purrs and buries his face in her hair, calming his pants enough to breathe deep and take in her scent. "I used an oil to help soften my hide, but we can't use a traditional mark."

Jane frowns and pulls his head to look into his eyes. "Why not?"

His vocals shift to a sad note and he caresses the crook of her left shoulder. "We mark each other here and we can't do that-"

"Because anyone who knows anything about Turian bondmates would see it and know exactly what it is," she finishes his sentence and drops her head, defeat sinking her shoulders.

He lifts her chin and purrs warmly. "We can always make our tradition. My neck isn't the only sensitive hide on my body…"

His statement drops her mouth in stunned happiness. _We can still have a chance to share in his culture of bonding?_ "Of course, just tell me where and I'm all for it." She scoots closer to his body and rests her hands along his plated chest.

He tilts his head and examines her body, then his own. "How about the waist? Right here." He softly caresses above the curve of her hip and she shivers at the heat his touch leaves to spread through her abdomen. "I have something that will help the bleeding and pain, but still let it scar like any other bond mark. And it's safe for you." He presses his forehead to hers.

Unable to speak anything but an excited agreement, Jane nods against his head, her lips wide in a full smile. He hums happily, backing away to reach out to the desk and pulls a small tin off its surface that she's sure wasn't there this morning. At her raised brow he holds it to her.

It's a circular, silver tin the size of her palm and only about two centimeters deep with some Turian script over the top. "It's a paint that you put in the bite to leave it as a colored scar." She opens the tin to reveal a dark blue paste-like substance. "It goes off of colony markings and since I've caught you tracing mine and commenting on the color, I thought it was pretty good odds that you'd like the color." She smiles at the vivid color the exact shade of the paint across his plates. "If you don't like the color, then you can always let it fade out and leave the scar as a natural color." He takes the tin in his hand and she willingly lets him hold it. "I had it made while you were getting a dress to be safe for both of us, so there shouldn't be any reactions or side effects. The only non-traditional thing we have left to cover is the mark themselves."

"How to we do them? Is it difficult?" Jane bites her lip, not timid about the fact that she's going to let him sink his teeth into her skin but because of the fact that she's completely out of her element with this.

"It's not difficult, just going to be a bit awkward because we can't make them in the middle of mating like usual." He shifts her off of his lap and down to her back on the mattress. "I'll go first to show you how to do it. Is that ok? I promise not to hurt you more than necessary."

Jane raises her hand to cup his silvery mandible and he tilts into her hold with a soft purr, his eyes never leaving her own. "I trust you."

With a deep rumble he pulls away and drops down to her midsection, licking along her lip hip bone and the soft flesh around it. She has no idea what to expect, but she does notice that each time she seems to tense he will softly purr and lick, silently coaxing her to relax.

Taking his lead, she lets her body loosen and forces her body to take deep breaths, no longer letting herself think about his actions. Suddenly, she feels a set of sharp stings, like the injection of needles, that quickly diminishes to a warm heat as Garrus sinks his teeth deeper into her flesh.

Her heart beats at the mix of pain from his teeth and pleasure from his gentle fingers caressing her belly and stroking through her wet folds. She can feel his rough tongue lick along the flesh in his mouth and she moans at the added sensations shooting to her clit that he is also diligently tending to.

Just as sudden, his teeth are out of her flesh and his warm tongue strokes along the new holes in her flesh as he hands move together to gather some of the paint for her bondmark. With each swipe of his tongue to soothe the pain her muscles twitch in lower belly, remarkably building to her first orgasm despite the thought that she never felt much for pain as a fetish.

She just has enough time to ponder if it really is more about the thought behind the pain before she feels his warm palm coating her injury with a cool paste. He rumbles deeply, the vibrations echoing in her body, as he slathers the salve on her waist, pulling away once every last incision is covered with the cobalt substance.

When he raises up to her face, his chin plates are tinted a light red from her blood but she doesn't care as she pulls his face down to suckle on his plates and tongue. Flipping his body to lay below her.

She releases him and looks down at his wide pupils and heavily rising chest. "Now it's my turn," she says with a sultry look as she drops to his waist.

She's happy to see that he's been forcing himself to stay behind his plates though it's obvious he's more than ready as the very tip of his member peeks through the wet fold of his sheath. When she told him to mate like a Turian, she knew and wanted him to enter her directly like he would his own kind. To see him fighting against her relentless teasing so he could share that with her just makes her more confident of her decision and trust in him.

She caresses his soft hide at his waist, in inner muscles jumping at the contact and she looks up to him in silent question. _Will I even be able to get through his thick skin?_

"I used some oil before the wedding to soften my hide." He doesn't look down at her, the sight and knowledge of what'll happen must be a bit much to keep his concentration. "You will be able to do it…just don't hold back. You can't hurt me."

She silently scoffs with a smile and licks his flesh, a close approximation of the same spot he had bitten on her body. Her own wound is numb and not bothering her, probably an effect of the salve he used, so she is more than happy to give him some of the same treatment that she received.

When he groans and shifts, she figures he's had enough that it's soon becoming torturous to hold back and opens her mouth over his hide. She closes around him, definitely not able to cover as much of his hide that he did her, but she knows it'll leave her own special bondmark, something she's sure he'd want more.

She starts to clinch her jaw, tightening her hold on his skin but quickly meets resistance despite the fact that he said he had softened it. _This is soft? It's still hard as a brick!_ She grunts in effort and feels his warm hand drop to her head, his body vibrating in a supportive vocal.

Her hands grip his body, one against the other side of his waist and the other just below his hip and she closes her eyes, using all the strength in her body to just break through his hide, damn the soreness in her jaw tomorrow.

She hears a soft grunt of pain from his throat just as her teeth break through the resistance and the sweet tartness of his blood hits her tongue. She relaxes her body and soothes him by stroking his outer thighs with her palms. She loosens her grip with her teeth but before she can pull completely out, his hand holds her head down in silent instruction to go deeper.

Though she doesn't want to hurt him more, she knows he knows more about this than her and follows his direction, biting down again to deeper the tracks of her teeth. It must hurt more than his own teeth if his tightened grip in her hair is anything to go by and she silently sends him an apology as she comes flush to his warm hide.

He finally releases her head and she pulls from his skin, licking his sweet wounds to sooth the pain and clean like he had done. As she laps at his dark blue blood, he hands the tin of paint over with heavy pants and she hopes he isn't in too much pain.

She takes a glob of the cool paint and coats his wound with the blue ink, dropping kisses of apology along his waist. He purrs and she takes it as an acceptance, moving up his body once she's stopped the bleeding with the soothing gel.

She barely has a moment to place the tin on the desk before he drags her down to him to lick her stained lips and growl warm breaths into her skin. Her eyes widen at the realization that his pants and tightened grip were the exact opposite of what she thought, he wasn't in pain after the initial bite - he was just as turned on as she was.

She chuckles through their tangled tongue at the revelation and takes his head in her hands to help him rise from the bed, no longer in the mood to go slow. She's already soaking wet and craving him inside her and she doesn't want to test his sense of control any more.

With him now in a seated position she releases him to get into position, leaving him to shift to his knees as she crawls before him and rises to her hand and knees. He growls appreciatively and strokes a hand down her spine, making her arch at the light scratch of talons.

"I like this view." He growls, his usual voice all but lost in his feral lust. "You still sure? It's not demeaning?"

She looks over her shoulder with a smirk. "If I thought it was demeaning would I have my ass in the air for you like a cat in heat?" She wiggles her said ass and he growls, his hands coming to her hips.

He shifts closer to her center and puts his knees inside of her own. He pulls her towards him, her center pressed against his warm and moist plates and she gasps at the heat radiating from him. One hand drifts to wrap around the back of her neck and he growls low, deep, and feral as he relaxes.

They both moan at the sensation of his slick cock sliding from his plates and directly into her tight channel. Jane drops her head, breath quick and trying to maintain control over her firing nerves before she feels him withdraw with a low thrum.

He stops just as the tip of him rests in her folds before slamming back into her, dragging her back with the hand at her hip and neck. Without any more preparation to widen her, he starts a brutal pace of thrusts, his fingers at her hips tight enough to hurt.

Jane can't hold back her high moans that quickly turn into small gasps as his ridges become more pronounced and rub directly over her g-spot with every movement. Soon she's arching her back and screaming out her first orgasm, he nowhere near to completion.

He doesn't give her a chance to cool down before he's dropping hand from her neck to stroke her clit. He growls when she clinches him uncontrollably at his torture and she can vaguely thank the fact that he's holding her up because this overstimulation is quickly draining her strength.

She feels him pulse and his vocals lower to very deep vibrations that shoot up her body from their connected organs. She feels the hot flush of his fluids, but he only slows enough to pump into her with a snarl, giving her a small moment of reprieve as his dick becomes the sole means of stimulation.

He drops down over her and licks against her neck, his thrusts gaining strength but staying as long, deep dives into her core. She gasps at the new pleasure the change of pace creates combined with the electric touch of his warm tongue. He feels her inner muscles clinch because he growls and shifts his hips to thrust upward, pulling over again with a scream.

He does give her the chance to calm and she distantly notes the feeling of him cumming again. _Turians really do just focus on breeding for their honeymoons_, she blurrily thinks as she feels him rise off of her back.

With a low moan, Garrus presses an open palm between her shoulder blades, forcing her chest to the bed. Her cunt is constantly twitching at mere sensation of his insertion and every movement, every breath, has her breath faltering even with him still. He must be in a similar state because at each clinch of muscle, his hips jerk and the constant purr stutters in his chest.

Once he has her down where he wants her, he starts to pound her with more force than during her first orgasm. Her scream comes out as nothing more than a hoarse breath as she feels that sudden intensity of release and he throws his head back with a deep moan.

He grabs her leg and gets up to one foot, throwing her leg over his knee. The new angle has her gasping, closing her eyes and talking without direction as he thrusts into her. Part of her hears herself telling him it's too much but begging for more, harder, deeper and she can't seem to disagree with that other part of her.

He may be ruthlessly pounding her and pulling every last orgasm from her body that she never knew she was capable of, but damn if it isn't the hottest thing she's ever been a part of.

She grips the blankets tight and tries to thrust back into his lap, not much she can do in her position but the little she manages gets her an appreciative growl and moan. She can just see him over her shoulder, his mouth open in deep pants and tongue curly in the air, returning to his mouth just to flick immediately back out and repeat, and his dark eyes instantly locking to hers.

With a feral growl he drops the hand holding her thigh to her center and assaults her clit. She screams, clinching her eyes tight as she gets closer to her whatever numbered orgasm and his thrusts falter, organ pulsing and tensing within her walls as he closes in on his end as well.

He tugs her hips closer with both hands, the one on her hip and one at her clit, and she misses the sound of their sheets tearing in her own loud scream as her orgasm floods over ever hyper sensitive nerve. Her voice is joined by her husband's drug out moaning growl as he spends himself within her, flooding her to the point she knows he's completely drained. He drops her leg sluggishly and catches himself on his elbows before he completely collapses on her sweaty, flushed back.

She chuckles weakly and hears him join her. She turns her head to the side and he nuzzles against her. "You weren't kidding. God damn that was fucking amazing."

He laughs. "You weren't so bad yourself, though I'm pretty sure I have you beat." She scowls at his good mood so soon after mind-blowing sex.

"I'm surprised you can count right now."

"And that's why I'm in the lead." She smiles at their running game of seeing who can pleasure the other more and softly kisses against his mandible.

He hums and nuzzles her again, shifting to get off her back. "No wait!" He looks to her with a question in his calm eyes. "I don't want you to leave." She's come to enjoy the feeling of having him inside her even when they aren't having sex. It's a Turian custom that she quickly grew to love, both for the sensation and deeper emotional meaning of connection.

"I can't just lay on your back, Jane. I'll crush you." He flicks a mandible in concern. She pouts and clinches her sore muscles around him in a wordless reminder of what he'll be missing. He chuckles and wraps an arm under her belly, pulling her to his chest and shifting them to lay on their sides. "How's this?"

"Perfect." She smiles and turns her head back to him. He leans forward and kisses her softly, a tender press of her slightly parted lips and a quick flick of his tongue. He pulls her closer to his chest, one arm under her head and the other relaxing against her waist, and rests his head at her back.

After a few moments of letting their hearts calm and bodies cool, Jane smiles and turns her head a bit to get his attention. "You know, I have a feeling this whole Turian-Humans relationships thing is going to catch on and then we won't have to hide." She snickers quickly. "I can just imagine it: Star children of the newest fad in celebrity relationships is a coupling between Turian and human. How does it work? Do they even?"

She feels the gentle shake of his head and the puff of air against her chilled skin. "I'd rather not imagine that… Pretty sure it'll also take a long time before what we have becomes mainstream enough to overlook the prejudice."

"Really now?" She smirks though he can't see it. "Rumor in Alliance channels have it that there's something going on with the Hierarchy." She lays a hand on his at her waist. "Could be that we may start to see some Turian-Human projects come out that doesn't involve our sex life."

His rumbling laugh billows through the strands of her hair. "It will certainly look better in the news reports. Wonder if your rumors are true."

Jane smiles and strokes his forearm. "Me too," she softly says as she feels her body start to fall into a well-deserved sleep. She knows that there is no better end to such an important day in her life than to fall asleep in the arms of the man she loves who she has promised to spend the rest of her existence with.

~SquigglySquid says: And so ends part one of Parable. I'm sure you all caught the definition of Juxtaposed in their wedding ceremony *wink, wink* and see why I chose that for the title. Part two will start with ME 1, which will be a few months after this but don't worry, I'll be sure to let that bit of info be known. I may not be available to write tomorrow because I'd like to get an outline drafted out before writing. If that's the case, I'm sorry and please be patient! Thank you all for reading and reviewing (thank you even to those who didn't review!) and enjoy!

Part two is now up: s/10854338/1/Genesis


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